The Telltale Heart
by Bushyeyebrows99
Summary: Shizuo and Izaya meet their counterparts who are, unfunnily enough, in a functional relationship with three kids.
1. Chapter 1

**Length: **Multi-chaptered

**Ship(s): **Shizuo/Izaya

**Tags/Warnings: **Multiple Universes, Jealousy, Envy, Angst, Slow-Burn, -ish?, Supernatural Elements (?), Other Universes

**Author's Note: **This story has and always will be, though I didn't always know it, for the people we never understand enough to keep.

* * *

_"It's too late to move back, yet too early to move on."_

Izaya supposes that there are worse ways to pass the time.

However right now, sitting across the couch with Itsuki pointedly ignoring him, he thinks he has never felt so decidedly sour. Of course, there were definitely worse ways to pass the time. He can think of so many just off the top of his head - waterboarding, hospitals, prison. This was nothing compared to all those. But maybe that was the issue, people needed distractions or else they fell easily into despair. Pascal provided the simple theory: divertissement provided the necessary stimulation to add a touch of _Bonheur _to one's inner life, if only to conceal the bleak inner realities of existence and mortality.

But maybe he was just being pessimistic. He found himself more caught up in these things as of late.

Too often, he finds himself worried about these situations. Progressively, they've started developing their own fair share of conflicts before so this wasn't anything _new_, but if that were the case, why did he feel so anxious? Apparently, the answers were inscribed in his ceiling or something, if the amount of time he has spent staring at it is any indication for results.

Sighing, Izaya crosses his arms with shut eyes. Being closed-off is his main methods of handling personal matters. Orihara Izaya has always known how to detach himself from situations if the need arises - or if it's just too much to handle, it seems. Not that he's all that proud of it anymore.

He had been insensitive - he knows it. Prior to this, Itsuki had come shuffling home with bags under his eyes, looking ten years too early for it. Then again, izaya himself had often worn that similar look near that tender age, when he was basically left with two younger sisters to look after and not a hint of what to do. But other than that, most of his childhood had been breezy, if forgettable. What really surprised him about his current situation, was when this little brunette decided he could be sneaky and quietly placed a crinkled but formal-looking letter on the coffee table before edging away.

"Stay." And he stilled immediately.

Getting off from his working station, Izaya gently handled the letter before swivelling around his chair so that Itsuki would not see him rubbing his fingers against his aching temple, slow and methodically. Another situation at school, another meeting. It really has been piling up the past few weeks. The first few times, Izaya has let it slide unquestioned. It's normal, these things he has observed so commonplace that it is forgettable, really. He figured that sometimes those problems are something that kids had to work through by themselves, coddling was no use in the long run But there comes a time where these situations carry on for far too long and could not be ignored any longer.

"Before I open this," his voice cuts sharp and thin through the clouding tension in the room. All as he waves the envelope in his left hand, pivoted from a sharp edge. "Why don't you consider explaining yourself first."

He's had experience with these sorts of warning letters before and the best thing he has learnt was that it was better to let the kids articulate themselves first. Mairu, in particular, was prone to bouts of behavioural issues and spontaneous phone calls, even though he had never bothered actually attending to those before. And it wasn't like their parents were concerned enough to fly into Japan just to check-in.

The first and only time he has went was because Kururi had really begged him to. All in all, he had found it a rather humbling experience.

"I don't wanna go to school anymore." Over the years, Itsuki had grown increasingly more similar to a violent-tempered brute he once and still knew, all whilst possessing a self-assured confidence that Izaya's supposed he himself has carried all throughout their later years in life. A combination that they've always been wary about before, but has now started to grate on even _him._

_"_And _why_ would you want to?"

"I just want to do my own thing." The real problem was that his 'own thing' was never concrete, and while Izaya appreciated variety, he also appreciated logic.

When he was younger, Itsuki went from wanting to be a zookeeper, to a plastic surgeon and then a bookstore owner. Currently he was interested in the field of marine biology. Izaya admits, he's greatly annoyed by this thought process - it was just too odd! How did any of them even link together?

"Darling_,_ you know I love you. If I decided to kill you and bury the body no one would ever know. So go back to doing your work, you're not dropping out of school."

"Why? Why can't I just be home-schooled instead! It could be your birthday present to me! I know that you always have a hard time choosing anyway. I know you still don't really have an idea of what to - "

"I have more important things to do," Izaya snaps, not appreciating being read by even his child yet conflictingly feeling a swell of pride. "and the entire purpose of the school is to educate you on things that your parents don't really have time for. You're the one who's always acting like a brat that it's even getting too much for me." He hisses.

"_You're_ the one who tells me to burn my homework!" Itsuki's voice rises, and it's almost cute because he's still at the age where his voice is fluctuating in varying degrees, except the assertion in his tone is too strong to miss out on.

"That was a _joke._" Izaya stresses. Well, partly. It was only because he's never really needed to complete homework, but he's never set them on fire either.

The other people there suck anyway, I'm not -" his faced scrunched up in shame, and it is here where Izaya starts to unravel what this whole thing is really about. "I'm not like you, okay, people aren't fun to me and it's grating to be around some of them."

"Well, that's not exactly your choice to make."

Itsuki's face falls, and Izaya feels like the worst that he has always heard everyone referring to him as. Only this time, it did matter. How did he ever manage to have unconditional love of this young boy sometimes he doesn't know, and sometimes he didn't exactly know how to get it back either.

Really, Izaya may be a carefree individual but how was any parent supposed to react to this, realistically? Shizuo would have probably been able to handle it better, been more understanding - in the sense that he _had_ experienced these things before and came out better. Sadly, he was out with his old work friends at Asakusa. Tom-san had moved there when he settled down to some woman, and as far as he knew Varona was still working for the underground, though at least Shizuo was aware of it now.

Izaya ponders this for so long that he does not notice that the day has faded to evening. Absently, he notes a two small calls of 'I'm home' at different timings from the girls but it was only until he felt the absence of warm sunlight and the cool breeze of the night that he blinked out of his stupor. It seems that Itsuki has left a while ago. Well, no matter, Izaya would settle just what was wrong at his school, and this would all blow over by the next day. Things always do.

Silently cursing himself for his continued indifference, he heads to his room. On the way, he looks out the same, wide windows that he has known for years, at all the cars retreating from the light. He imagines what they would look like even later at night, just before twilight - his favourite time - with their neon headlights leaving luminescent, almost otherworldly, trails behind. Later in the room, he envisions it. However he knows, when he closes his eyes, that those lights still remain in front of him, and that when he tries to reach out his hands, they touch nothing, and he is left with the same feeling lingering in his chest.

"I see you're still doing those stretches."

Shizuo made the most endearingly redundant comments when he didn't need to. Izaya lazily opens his eyes, arms still outstretched at nothing above him. He faces Shizuo with a half-lidded look that he knows still mildly annoys this other, and turns his body the opposite way on the bed.

Shizuo closes the door gently, making the barest of sounds. And he used to be such a loud man, too. But maybe his theory on names reflecting one's personality could still hold some water.

He feels the side of the bed sinking with Shizuo's added weight and a hand suddenly appears at his side, caressing his waist soothingly.

"What's wrong?"

Ah, what powerful intuition. Or perhaps he has gotten too soft - he was already forty-eight and still yearned desperately to be twenty-five again. Was this what Shizuo felt all those years ago, that impending sense of mortality and melancholy? Probably not, honestly. While the threat of mortality was still there and still feared, Izaya has learnt, years ago and very painfully so, that his death was inevitable and has learnt to accept it. Furthermore, there have never been any accomplishments that he was particularly mourning over, he wasn't prone to self-confidence issues except concerning very few people. So what was it? Not just why did he yearn for the past but what exactly did he yearn for? Of course, the irony of him being obsessed with the past is not lost on him, for it may as well be his God for how much it dictated his actions now.

"He's mad at me." Izaya sighs, trying to make it sound less dreadful than it actually is. _He doesn't hold me in the same high regard as he used to anymore._

"Who - Suki?"

"I wasn't aware that we had any other 'he's' unless you're cheating on me - Shizu-chan! How could you destroy my maiden heart like that?" bleats Izaya, and the tears he has expertly drawn up are nothing more than crocodile, but the expression he's wearing is still convincing enough to kick Shizuo right where it hurts.

"Wha - no, shut up. You know I wouldn't." To any outsider, the apparent nervousness in Shizuo would have been a cause for alarm, but really, it was just that Shizuo was too soft for his own good sometimes.

"I know, I know. You get really shocked when I bring these things up though, I wouldn't mind watching your reactions forever. It's like you're hearing it for the first time every time."

And with that, Shizuo has rolled his eyes and stopped feeling worried. "It's not like I don't know what cheating is, I just, don't want to associate it with any part of us."

"You used to think differently about me." Izaya recalls, sadly.

"I know," Oh, he's ashamed. "And I'm still sorry for that but it's all in the past. Let's just get back to what we were talking about 'kay?"

"Yes sir!" suddenly, Izaya's eyes cloud over in darkness and he smirks next to Shizuo's ear. "Or would you rather I call you _Daddy?_"

Shizuo shoves Izaya off then, but still keeps a firm hand on his shoulder to steady him. "I know what you're trying to do and it's not working. Don't change the subject, what really happened that's got you this fu - uh, ticked off?"

Humming, Izaya drops his act but never loses that playful flair in his actions.

"Shizu-chan, what kind of parent do you think I am?"

Shizuo pondered this for a while.

"I think...you're not bad with kids, actually. Even back then with Akane, even if you _were _manipulating her, she actually really liked you, even if she called you creepy. And when it comes to our own children, you've been, really understanding actually. When we first started out, I wasn't sure if you were just trying to appease me or something, but then I saw that, Izaya, you are really trying." He smiles, but it doesn't exactly reassure him.

"But there is a catch isn't there?"

"Flea, this is _you _we're talking about. Yeah, there is gonna be a catch. Even if you try to be a bit distant sometimes, it's like you can't help but seep into everyone's lives all the time. And it's really apparent with those three."

"You are just kind of, withdrawn? Yeah, I think that's the word."

"What do you mean?" Izaya groans, knowing exactly what Shizuo meant.

"I feel like you just don't know how to talk to them that well when it comes to certain emotions. You can clearly understand what they feel in extreme situations, but when it comes to normal problems it's like you can't connect. At the same time, you're also kind of pervasive, it's like you're imbedded in all of them them in some , I'm not exactly happy about Suki's situation at school either, but I do, understand it."

"Oh I know you do. How could you not? Especially since I was the one who put you through all of it, just like how I'm doing the same to our child it seems. I suppose some things just never change." Izaya spat, sounding flat and hard.

"Izaya..." A heavy concerned gaze peeks through Shizuo's bangs, and all of a sudden Izaya feels worse.

"Sometimes I still get confused with this look of yours." Izaya mentions sadly, running his hands through bronzed locks instead of that tacky but fitting yellow he used to have. It seemed to symbolise the closing of a chapter in his life he wasn't sure he wanted complete yet.

"It's been three years, Izaya. And I mean, it's my natural look." He says, grabbing his hair as if surprised that it _is_. Izaya still believes that his natural look will always be bottle blonde and dangerous.

"Yes, yes, but these things take time. I think it just reminds me of my own hair - I've managed to keep myself looking relatively young all this time, but there's only so much a human can do."

"Screw all that, I can't wait to see you get proper wrinkles up your forehead and have your cheeks sag a bit more. That'll be cute." Shizuo says, scarily earnest, as he kisses said cheeks. How he managed to make his aging sound appealing Izaya really did not know. Shizuo himself has aged well, the time tracing his face makes him look robust instead of weary, adding an added layer of maturity to his features he's never quite been able to live up to. But he has always been timeless, like an old soul in a young body.

"Shizu-chan! That is the most terrifying thing you have ever said. No way! I absolutely must not!" He shrieked only half-jokingly. Half. If he was being entirely honest, his looks were never something he paid excessive attention to, only noting it for how it drew others to trust him and surround him. Say anything about Orihara Izaya but let it be known that he has never been overly interested in himself; only ever others.

Shizuo merely hummed some old tune in response, cradling Izaya as he did so.

"Ugh, this is getting creepy. You know, you're always thinking about the weirdest things Shizu-chan, I can't follow your knowledge at all." Izaya said and sat up. "But it's sweet, I think. You're so caring it almost hurts. I used to think that you didn't deserve anyone but now I know it is the other way around. Who could deserve you? I feel a bit guilty."

"Guilty?" Shizuo was startled by this revelation.

"Oh, it's nothing." Izaya hummed, meaning that it was clearly something. "Sometimes I feel like, I'm keeping you all to myself, and you could find some homey woman who could match you, but no one could, nobody bloody deserves you." His voice like an echo of a siren, or some other fairyland, all together encapsulating a deep sense of eeriness whilst still being serene.

"...does that count as a swear?" Shizuo asks nervously, not really wanting to continue down this dangerous line of thinking. And Izaya giggles louder, clambering into Shizuo's lap as he snuggles more into his hair.

Izaya had always had this idea that Shizuo would abandon him - which was ironic, since he had always been the one running away. Unfortunately, it felt as if the rest of the family had firmly inherited this trait as well. It was like they had all made some non-existent connection between Izaya's perceived femininity and Shizuo's unchecked aggression and was under the impression that he was simply girl-deprived. Well, his kids were all a bit paranoid and weird, he supposes. As the years went by, they slowly grew out of that perception. Izaya, however, still had the suspicion that Shizuo would grow tired of putting up with him, but he was Izaya, and he could usually talk himself out of it soon enough.

He wondered how much longer it would take before Izaya believed that he would never leave him. He pictured them thirty years later, in their late seventies, old and wiry like how Simon seemed to look these days, with Izaya still clinging tight an arm's length away. Once, he told Izaya about this after he had (_still_) proclaimed to be 'forever 21', (he could at least pass off for early thirties) and he had laughed, though Shizuo had meant it very seriously.

Shizuo felt it important that he said something to calm Izaya's growing unrest in return, but he really could not find the words to say. It sometimes felt as though words eluded him, as if they were too afraid to be in his grasp as well. He rubbed circles around Izaya's waist for comfort instead - he found himself doing that a lot.

Leaning upwards, he kissed Izaya hard and rough and altogether sweet at the same time. One of those kisses that held everything he needed to say over.

Izaya let out a soft sigh, Shizuo took that as Izaya urging him to continue. Nudging his way down his neck, then his collar, Shizuo then finds his favourite spot on Izaya's chest - the area right over his heart. Shizuo's favourite neutral position in the morning was lying half-awake with his head shielding this spot. He's recounted this to Izaya before, and Izaya responded by saying he comes up with a new favourite spot every week or so.

"Last week you said it was behind my ears, and the week before it was my temple - don't get Alzheimer's on me now."

"Really? Hm."

"I think I'm just too irresistible for you. You just want everything from me, isn't that right?" He teases, but there's a crack, a slight uncertainty there that isn't quite convinced.

Shizuo opens his mouth to breathe against the spot, he can feel Izaya shuddering above him as he does. Then, he bites down on it, causing Izaya to flush and dig his hands into his brown mane, pulling the pain away. When he's done, he licks his lips and leans back. There's a large, bright red mark left there, marking him for the time being. It looked like a calling, he thought, a proof of a sensitive heart beneath that cold, pale skin.

"From fairest creatures we desire increase, that thereby beauty's rose might never die." Izaya's voice is soft and murmurous after being so thoroughly taken apart. "One on another's neck do witness bear, that every tongue say beauty should look so."

"Where's this one from?"

"Oh, here and there - they're from sonnets. One was about a dark lady, and another, a young, darling boy."

"Cool. Sounds romantic."

"Which part, though?"

"The (earlier/later) part. Wouldn't it make sense? If it's about the lady."

"Now isn't that interesting. Actually, that part was about the young boy, 'Fair Youth', was the series. I suppose then, you fall in line with what most people would consider romantic, considering those sonnets are considered to be more flattering. I myself rather find the ones about that elusive mistress to be more amorous in its flirtations. _'All this the world well knows yet none knows well,/To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.'"_

"No way that's more romantic."

"We'll just agree to disagree then." Izaya shrugs.

Over the years Izaya found himself switching from philosopher to playwrights to ideologists and so on. He's always liked taking in diverse forms of knowledge, but this was different than his average information gathering. And so, from the great minds of Wilde and Poe, to Kant and Wittgenstein, Marx and Adam Smith, Dōgen Zenji and a few others he traversed. They were mostly filled with odd western and occasionally middle-eastern names that held no meaning in Shizuo's world. He thinks that Izaya is trying to search for something - some understanding or all-encompassing truth, for some reason.

_"Why do you do that?" _He once questioned when Izaya was pouring over Nietzsche with great fervour. Beside that pile was his usual workload along with report cards from school and the the tax papers that Shizuo was almost 99% certain he evaded half the time. And underneath that was Allan Poe, with sounds of hearts bursting through the floorboards.

_"Broadening my worldview."_ He said as if that was all he needed to explain himself. That was the only context Shizuo was given before his mind wandered away again, leaving him just as confused as when he asked.

Shizuo recalls that book, from a few years ago. Ever since they came back from that one vacation he's asked to borrow the Japanese version from Hana and occasionally comes back to it. He leaves the English with her to help her study. Sometimes, if a part interests him enough, he leaves sticky notes in there with his thoughts. Most adorably, the next time he opens it, either Hana or Haru will have commented on his own thoughts, leading to a situation where they'll have small conversations with each other at different points in time.

He has sort of taken whatever it said as a learning experience of sorts, even to the point where he's tried doing those Zen thinking things to see if they'd work, though they felt too embarrassing for him to really continue with wholeheartedly. It has given Shizuo a newfound liking of books beyond detective noirs and those 'coming-of-age' ones into other stuff, like contemporary novels and romances. Izaya says they're called 'bildungsroman', but to Shizuo that sounded like too ugly and complicated of a term to associate. Regardless, it has led him to pick up a bit of Murakami and Ozeki over the years. Maybe it was like that with Izaya, just more extreme.

Recently, Izaya himself has grown obsessed over Shakespeare. It was unexpected on Shizuo's end, since Izaya never struck him as the type who would like reading about the times of old. It was nothing he hadn't read before, Izaya had said when asked, but the words seemed to possess a newfound tangibility to him. Of course, Oscar Wilde would forever be up there at the very top, but he could not deny the certain spark of feeling he got from those plays, right down to the man's very last words.

_"Cursed be he that moves my bones."_

"England's national poet indeed." He had mused.

He's been reading the plays to Itsuki or Haru if they wanted to hear it. Sometimes, Shizuo would sit in too, but he wasn't one for understanding these complicated ideas, nor did he really care.

"Well fuck it," Shizuo says when he's done thinking. Izaya's face and chest was still red from earlier, his eyes possessing only the sharpest slit of red leaking through. "we always disagree anyway."

"I'll get the money from your wallet tomorrow." Izaya says, sounding like he's expired all his needs for talking today. "

"And just so you remember, it was those disagreements that led to our severely messed up history." Shizuo flinches at the memories. There were very little good in them, during the time where they were both at their worsts selves.

Izaya sometimes wondered if Shizuo truly loved him, or if he only loved the peace that accompanied a lack of fighting and riots that came with making amends not only with yourself, but with the people surrounding you.

_Will we ever be able to truly move beyond our pasts, I wonder? Or will the deed stay chronicled in our hells. _He thought, but immediately brushed it away. It was times like these were he remembered how dangerous it was to obsess over the past, for what only mattered was the present and future.

Still, a part of Izaya wishes he could disappear as easily as he used to. Guilt was an emotion he feels he could never get used to having but needing to confront every day. Uncharacteristically, he silently prays his problems away. He knows that it won't be answered, because there was no such thing as a God.

And so, they fall asleep that night like that, the two individuals wrapped up in their own little minds whilst their bodies were tangled together.

...

"IIIIIIIZZAAAAYAAAAAA-KUUUUN! COME BACK HERE SO I CAN SMASH YOUR FUCKING FACE IN!" It was at that moment that the residents of Ikebukuro heard the breaking and bending of metal being crushed against a brick wall, whilst the intended target flitted away, expertly sending back a series of blades at his attacker.

Ah, how had he gotten caught in this situation again? Not that he particularly minded being chased around sometimes (it was, after all, a show of his superior abilities against a monster's, securing his status a step ahead of Shizuo's and any other threats in this city), but it was getting on his nerves as well. He had only intended to come here for business today and slip away quickly like he did most days, but a wild Shizu-chan just had to appear and chase away one of his more unique clients.

Pity, this one was new. A man who had worked and backstabbed his way into power, power which often blindsides one's person. Izaya wanted to watch this one unfold slowly, with his desires laid bare to the world and have him acknowledge his humanity. That would have been lovely.

It was only when Izaya sidesteps into a narrow alleyway and ducks into one of the doors where he finally loses Shizuo amongst the chaos. He is slightly sweaty and exhausted, but the thrum in his veins that occurs whenever one of these chases happens is real, with excitement coursing through his blood.

After pacing his breath into something more even and controlled, he dials the client back. If he was lucky, he would be able to convince him to carry out their deal. Unfortunately, said man was extremely pissed and decided it was in his best interest to complain nonstop, which was amusing in itself, but less so when he declined ever working with Izaya. He could have probably made up some story to the clientele if he really wanted to keep working with him (after all, he thinks he could have had an interesting direction for this one if he played his cards right), that is, if the thought of being perceived as being lower the man and pitied didn't revolt him to the core.

Instead, he politely ended the conversation and resolved to expose his nefarious dealings later. Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Izaya happily skipped and whistled away back to his apartment. Another lovely day passing by.

…

Shizuo just wishes Izaya would be _gone_.

_"DiediediediediediediediedieDIE _\- wish that fucking flea was dead in a ditch and wish he would just be _gone_ \- " Shizuo muttered guturally, voice like a rising storm. Remembering how he had immediately caught sight of Izaya's smug face as he hopped away to make his shitty living, his eyes darkened over dangerously. How many times has it been already that he has failed in his one desire to see Izaya's cold body dead and battered? To finally give that asshole a fraction of the medicine that he deserves and pummel his body to death. Was that _really_ too much to ask for?!

He hadn't realised his fists were breaking through sandy, coarse brick walls until it was too late to realise. Shizuo made a disapproving noise at the back of his throat and shook his still-unscathed fist of the sharp rocks and rubble.

"If he would just disappear, then everything would be peaceful."

The gentle serration of the winds seemed to flow in agreement.

...

He is edging and floating, like a fallen leaf during autumn, carried on by the will of an outsider force that is far beyond his control.

He blinks his eyes open with much difficulty, the lids feeling as though they weighed like stones. Looking around, everything seems hazy, distorted, nebulous, unstructured and messy. Unrecognisable shapes are whirling past him, contradictorily quickly but muddy and slow all the same with the splashes of otherworldly oranges and purples and blues and more swirling into a vortex. It feels as though he's moving through glass but walking on air.

Is this what death feels like? He has always wondered what the process towards eternal sleep was like, but he hated dwelling on it for too long. He only wished to experience the feeling to satisfy his curiosity, and come back out knowing with a hundred percent certainty how much better it was to be alive.

The flotsam and jetsam of dead hours and expanses were aimlessly airing by, all of a sudden, he's thrust into a spiral of epileptic colours and gamma-bright flashes of white.

He's heard countless stories of people dying in their sleep, Death, ever the stealthy and sly mistress - sneaking in through the windows, under the bed, beneath the cracks of the floorboards - in the middle of those dark, dark nights, to smuggle away precious human lives. In ancient Greece, people did believe Death was the twin to Sleep - another reason why he disliked wasting his time with it. Was he undergoing some form of Sudden Death Epilepsy? Cardiac Arrhythmia?

Everything quickens, shooting past him in unnaturally high speeds, until he feels that his body is going to hit a brick wall, about to stop abruptly even though the rest of his self has been left far behind. And beyond that -

The rest is silence.

* * *

**Author's Note: **So, I don't exactly have a planned release date for each chapter, but I do have the ending written out. I've had it written out since the very start. It took me forever to get this first chapter out because I could never be satisfied with it, but I realised that if this was ever going to see the light of day I needed to complete it. I don't think I'll ever be really happy with this beginning, but I am certain, quite so, that its end will be just right.

On a happier note, it's great to get back to writing Shizuo and Izaya as they are in canon again, yelling and scheming. Their actions are always loud and dynamic, it's like they're putting on a play for an audience of none but themselves. :p


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: in a whole new world Author's Note: **haha life succs hallelujah

* * *

_"_

_"__If I change shape, and you forget time, do the spring leaves ever fall?"_

Izaya wakes up feeling as though he has plunged himself into a whole new world.

At first, everything was normal, deceptively so. Although his bedsheets were more ruffled than usual. He was not one for tossing and turning in his sleep, and he has no recollections of dreaming anything the previous night. Passing it off as morning drowsiness, he stretches out of the bedding and makes his way to the bathroom.

(Of course, he does not yet notice the framed picture on his bedside that has definitely never been there before.)

Even when he showers, he somehow feels that everything is wrong. As though the laws of physics itself has been entirely warped in some way, minute but there. Though, the water still flowed down with the permanent force of gravity and washed everything from the previous days clean away. Grime, grogginess, guise.

Reaching for his shampoo, even it felt different, less smooth. Weird. Even that was wrong, different. The brand name was one he would never even think of touching - too cheap, and did not have the same silky quality he liked that was present in, different types of shampoo. Despite that, he brushes it off as being clumsy while shopping, which is rare - he's never clumsy. Gods were never careless after all, they were omniscient, in their perfect giant homes.

And if God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.

He leaves the shower feeling more disgusted than refreshed, like he's entered a purgatory of some sort. What was with his place today? There were things in here that most definitely had no place in his household, much less the vanity area. The makeup - okay, that wasn't too unusual; he has certain means to get through to people sometimes - but _sparkling purple_? And the books were atypical and weirdly varied, some more suited to the taste of teenaged girls, and others perhaps a few intent readers of the magic realism audience. Though, there were also some he recognised as the ones he had at home, but he is certain that he has never brought them to his bedroom to read before. And he can't remember the last time he invited his sisters over - if ever, really - but they most certainly never played with _toys._ Most troubling of all, however, were the dusty bottles of half-empty _blonde_ hair dye, shoved and forgotten to a corner. Izaya would most definitely _never_ have needed those. He squints and turns the offending bottle in his hand, looking at it from every bizarre angle. It just didn't fit.

Trembling, he sets it back down so fast that it hits the marble top with a _clang_. He does not know why he's shaking. It's as though someone has uprooted his own stage, warped his very being. He feels like an imposter in his own home.

"Just what is happening." He speak to the face in the mirror. Predictably, it doesn't answer unless he tells it to.

He pushes himself away angrily, unnaturally annoyed at the day's events. It hasn't even been a few hours since he woke up but something was _terribly _wrong.

And when he gets out, he sees exactly why.

A wild Shizu-chan is on his bed, reading a book. Similar to those ones at the vanity.

What. The. Hell.

Izaya gapes at him for a solid three minutes, until even Shizuo starts to get worried. As soon as he moves to get up, Izaya shuts the bathroom door behind him in record speed. He makes the slow count to ten and begins to squeak it open again. His mind a wreck of speeding thoughts. Brown hair? Shizu-chan? Reading? _Brown-haired Shizu-chan reading?_

"..."

_Nope, still there._

It was almost too funny, but he wasn't laughing.

Swiftly, he lunges himself to his closet to acquire the extra blade that was always hidden in his jacket - only, he can't. This closet was mixed with someone - or a few someone's else's clothing, including some very _revolting familiar _bartender outfits.

Before Izaya could contemplate on his next move, at that moment, the door opened to reveal a young girl. She was a bit on the petite side - delicate, with a sharp diamond face and sharper brown eyes with black, silky hair flowing just past her shoulders. She was pretty no doubt, and looked around high school, so _why _was she here, gliding in as if it was a comfortable routine. Izaya gapes - _just what is happening?_

He doesn't and has _never _slept with anyone anywhere younger than twenty-one!

He barely registers her speaking.

"Breakfast's ready, come on out to eat. Eh, Otousan, you look really pale." She said, taking a step forward worryingly.

Silence, Izaya didn't know who she was referring to.

_Otousan?_

_Maybe she's talking about Shizu-chan, maybe he's infected some poor girl with his monstrous genome and this is just a by-product. Nevermind that she did not look like Shizuo in the slightest._

_There was a possibility that Shizu-chan's monster genes weren't _that _dominant, right?_

_...wait, just what the hell am I thinking?_

"...Ah, I'm fine." He's unsure whether whatever he does will have any implications yet, but if Izaya were anything he would most certainly be cautious. He wasn't stupid enough to disclose just how in the dark he was yet. This territory was foreign, and he was going to throw caution to the wind and edge his way along slowly. Whatever it takes, he would make things happen on his own terms.

A warm but strong hand lands on his shoulder and he almost jumps ten feet backwards. He doesn't. However, he flinches ever so slightly - it's negligible, really. Startled claret eyes meet flaxen and for a second, he has forgotten how to breathe, and Izaya almost resolved to stab him right then and there.

"You sure?" Shizuo's voice sounds so naïve, and his words, embarrassingly direct, Izaya feels completely exposed by them. The sound of _him _echoes deeply in his head and Izaya almost feels intoxicated by everything that has transpired over the last few minutes, and he hates how it is starting to make him lose himself.

_"You - "_

"If you say so," The girl cuts him off before he nearly makes an uncharacteristic mistake, "anyway, I'm heading to school early today. Kanna wants to meet up to do homework."

"Stay safe, and can you walk Suki to school too?" Shizuo asks, firm hand still on Izaya's shoulder, as if trapping

"Sure, but seriously, he's old enough to be able to go by himself. I mean, Haru-nee was seven when she started making her way around herself." She complained, but only barely.

And, in the most unexpected turn of events, she walks forward to give them both a peck on the cheek before leaving.

He has heard of people short-circuiting, or their brains shutting down with no understanding of the rest of the world in that moment, but he has never expected himself to be so shocked that he'd experience it himself. There's never been anything in his life that was so unpredictable that it was disarming, nothing that was beyond his understanding.

Except, when it came to _him_.

Izaya only jolts to life when he feels the heat radiating at his back, from the shape of a sizeable hand slipping to his waist. Immediately, he jumps at least ten feet away, still facing Shizu-chan - Shizuo, with wariness in his eyes.

"What the - Izaya? What's wrong with you today? You're acting weird."

That's right, he absolutely cannot act brashly anymore. There has to be...something this situation would offer him, and he needs to figure out more to do so while not raising alarm. That's right, he would come out of this in his own terms.

Straightening himself without losing all the taut lines of stress in his body, just in case, he walks towards Shizuo, careful to stand back a foot as he follows.

"Just peachy." He smiles without comfort.

Izaya spends the rest of his time changing contemplating the situation. He has narrowed it down to possibly he fact that he has been kidnapped, likely by one of his older, more powerful clients, and was currently put under some special sort of torture. Seems a bit excessive, but humans were nothing if not restless and greedy in their pursuits. When they exit to the living room, he sees a boy. _Now this is just terrifying. _The remote control was resting on his alpaca themed-clad stomach for easy access. Terrible posture, and probably going to give him arthritis. He also, did not seem to want to acknowledge Izaya's presence, which was a small comfort in this endless madness, these strange happenings.

If Izaya was being honest, he looked like a mini Shizu-chan. Except with red eyes.

_Just what sort of Karisawa fantasy have I entered into?_

He takes the time to observe any differences. Furnishing wise, nothing is actually different from his own set-up back home, just more messes scattered upon the floor, and bits of more colour here and there.

The people who planned this must have been careful to emulate his apartment, line-by-line, no less. But then, they had been stupid enough to forget that the Fighting Doll of Ikebukuro was blonde, not brunette.

For this could be nothing more than an elaborate joke, he kept telling himself. A joke for which someone would have to pay for dearly. And the one to pay the most would certainly be the not-blonde-not-bartender beast at his side, who looked a bit too concerned for comfort.

The sound from the television brought his attention away. It was displaying an old Disney movie with Japanese subtitles at the bottom. Ironically or perhaps fittingly, it had hit a scene where the main leads were riding on a flying carpet, singing about a _'Whole New World'. _Izaya is despaired at finding himself relating to mindless children's media. When had his life turned into such a joke, a dive into the twilight zone. Next thing he knows a towering 500-foot Martian will appear, warning him of the end of times. He would rather prefer that, actually.

He is on constant guard as he manoeuvres around the couch to the tiny island in the middle of his kitchen. Shizuo seats down next to him, there's a hand that comes onto Izaya's shoulders that just _simmers _and _smoulders _through his loose shirt, instantly touching skin. Izaya flinches that hand off, glaring metaphorical daggers in place of the literal ones he _would_ have had prepared and preferred.

Shizuo looks extremely taken aback, eyes wide with vulnerability and so out of character that Izaya is almost more surprised than amused, but he takes his hand back, looking more guilty than angered. His heavy weight of disquiet etched on Izaya's every move afterwards. Izaya ignores it as easily as he can and focuses on the contents of the table instead, where breakfast was comprised of plain rice and miso soup: just how he liked it. He felt his stomach lurch at the thought, feeling greatly violated.

Nonetheless, he gingerly lifts the spoon to his mouth, spending a great amount of time speculating each grain of rice before experimentally taking a bite. It tasted too good.

As they continue eating, he finds that Shizuo fast forwards the 'scarier' (was an Arabic man with a most horse-like face and a giant snake really considered traumatising?) parts of a film while watching it with - there was no denying it - his kids. The girl - Hana was her name, honestly Izaya was quite disappointed at their naming choices, they were all probably Sh- complained about Shizuo being too soft, but the young boy did not seem to mind much. Actually, Izaya found that his attention was extremely focused on his being, scrutinising him, even if he kept feigning ignorance when Izaya glanced back.

It was too surreal.

"How nice it would be..." The older, _other_ girl muttered. (Just how many were there?) "to be able to have a genie. You know, to save the day, grant wishes. Stuff like that." She said, pumping her fists lazily.

"You'd only have three wishes." Itsuki mumbled.

"Well, three is plenty! What would a greedy boy like you even want beloved-brother-whom-I-love-and-am-totally-not-asking-because-I-still-don't-know-what-you-want-for-your-birthday."

"Some peace and quiet in here, for once." Hana said in her straightforward manner.

Haru raised her eyebrow, jumping up from her spot on the couch. "That should be my line!"

"I like things as they are now," Shizuo says, eyeballing Izaya from the side. "mostly."

Itsuki merely shrugs as a response.

"Dammit again!" She exclaims, pulling at her brown locks in frustration. She grabs Itsuki by his shoulders and shakes him about frantically, all the while the young boy managing to maintain one of the best poker faces Izaya has ever seen. He must have gotten it from his uncle. Izaya frowns at that thought, disturbing it was.

"Why won't you make my life easier for me and stop being a cryptic little thing! All I want to do is try to be a good sister for you but you make it so haaard!" Squawking crows could not compare to her whining. She relents after a while and puts a hand on her chin while giving out an exasperated sigh. "Well, I actually think it'd be pretty nice to have more friends sometimes."

"That's surprisingly honest." Hana blinked.

"You'll be fine. I used to wish I had more people surrounding me as well, but in the end you realise that it doesn't matter how many people you have but which ones will stick with you till the end."

"Otouchan...that was surprisingly deep."

"Oi, _surprisingly_?"

"You're alright," Itsuki's face softens as he looks back at his sister, acting more an older sibling, a role reversal that did not go unnoticed by Izaya. "I mean, Ha-ni has friends, and I don't know how people manage to stay around her for so long."

"Said by the devil himself, I see."

"Izaya?" A hand occupies his field of vision and his attention is once again forced back to the last thing he would like to see right now. "You're never usually silent on discussions like this..." He says, worried again by Izaya's lack of participation.

"What do you think, what would you want?" The way he's said it sounds more than just a mindless question.

He feels stunned by the sudden inclusion. Just now, it had felt so different, like he was watching the whole thing behind a screen rather than having it play out right in front of him. The silence he is bound to leave in his wake if this attitude is kept up will no doubt be awkward and uncomfortable. But he, he really can't find anything to say, he knows what he wants, always has and always will, but -

"That isn't difficult to think about at all - eternal youth! He's always acting so vain, it's only fitting!"

"You know, now that I think about it, doesn't Otousan look younger these days?" Haru comments, as if just seeing Izaya for the first time. He supposed she technically was.

Izaya's breath hitches as he finds all eyes on him, and he can only remain uncharacteristically silent. And he absolutely hates it, not being able to control the torrent of foreign feelings welling inside of him. He whips around in panic to face Shizuo, who is also starting to notice the difference. Now that Izaya thinks about it, how did he not see how...aged Shizuo has become.

How does Izaya look like now?

"...Ah, well, I do have my secrets for staying young. Wouldn't you like to know?" He says smoothly, being a master at feigning his way out of difficult situations, though he is a little late. They don't all buy it, but the suspicion is quelled nonetheless.

"Stingy, stingy demon!"

He tries to shift conversation before any suspicions could be raised and attempts to do so with the children. Most kids were prone to spilling more than they knew.

"Aren't you supposed to be at school soon? He starts with the youngest. The boy was not the most naïve child around, and in fact has proven himself to be quite perceptive, but he was still the least experienced all the same, so it was a safer bet. In another time, he might have tried acting kinder, sweeter, but he had no room for compassion now, being too exasperated and desperate to care.

"Why, you're absolutely right! I suppose I am." Itsuki bites.

Now that was a surprise, Izaya was at least certain he would never raise a brat like...himself. Oh.

"Then why aren't you getting ready?"

"Don't feel like it I guess." His voice embodying every discontent child Izaya has ever heard. He sounded as if he was recalling something from earlier and was beginning to shut himself out from further development. It didn't matter - Izaya had already gathered enough.

Shizuo quickly shoos him out of the door after that, where Hana was waiting to chide him loudly as he pulls up his socks. Itsuki hisses back some more and shrugs on his black gakuran and schoolbag, not sparing either of them so much as a 'goodbye' before he is out the door.

Seems like Izaya isn't the only one who wants to get away.

As the two bicker their way away, Izaya decides that the way the act is too disturbingly familiar.

"What about you?" Izaya asks the oldest girl. The question shoots through his mouth like acid. That's not the real question he should be asking, it should have been _What are you?_

And when she looks up with _his _eyes, he feels his mind snap.

Not for the first, not for the fifth and not for the fiftieth time that morning, Izaya has the uncontrollable urge to _ruin. _Nothing about this situation was suited for anyone present, _least_ of all Shizuo, who seemed to be content in his lot. At the very least, Izaya feels the smallest sense of victory at how uneasy he has been acting towards him. It gave him some semblance of control in the uncontrollable direction this was all going, as well as the reassurance that his presence could still be a cause for irritation for the immovable man.

"Huh?" She replies, almost as if she has forgotten. There was an air headedness there, or a hint of dreamy obliviousness that Izaya thinks he has frequently seen in Shizu-chan when the other didn't know he was watching before. "Oh, well, today is a half-day for me, so I can't be bothered to go at all!" She smiles.

In the end, Izaya is too out of it to register which one of the two left in the apartment has flipped the channel to something else. Somehow, Izaya finds himself in the very awkward situation of being caught between the two brown-haired individuals. Another unwanted information he has found out is that Shizuo likes watching nature documentaries (like the one called Our Planet) on sites that were still in their early stages of development in Izaya's own world. Animals probably could relate to each other in a certain way Izaya never wants to understand.

Now, when everyone else was distracted, Izaya takes it upon himself to piece together everything he has collected so far, and just how much he can use, and just how much he needs to _destroy._ Rip apart their false security with the secrets no doubt they were all hiding inside.

Since there was no apparent threat, he's decided to drop his earlier theory. It was a bit far-fetched, even by his standards.

Starting with the blatantly obvious, this was supposed to be a family.

One where _he _was involved.

Izaya did not do families. No, his love was so pure that he had to love humanity as a whole, every single human on earth equally, and that included his own family. No one went beyond the boundaries and rules he has set up.

This should have been no different.

He wondered how this development happened. Shizuo was the straightest person Izaya has seen over the years, frankly, even more so than Shinra - if he could even be considered a person, that is. As far as he knows the only people Shizuo has had crushes on in high school were all female, (upperclassmen and teachers alike) and even afterwards he has only ever shown consideration to women.

More than that though, even if Shizuo _was_ attracted to men, there was still the problem of _them_. IN all of this the most contradicting and out of place factor was their involvement with each other, and the intense hatred that divided them like a giant glass wall, miles of pain wide and years high. If there was any truth that Izaya could be trusted to tell without any deliberate nuances it would be that he _hated _Heiwajima Shizuo, hated him with as much emotion as Shizuo hated Izaya back.

It was a hatred so fundamental to their relationship and culture of Ikebukuro that for that universally shared view to be shifted under his feet left him free-falling through the ground, not knowing when the impact would kick in.

Izaya himself would never consider the option that this could happen. He was not blind to the type of people they were. Heiwajima Shizuo, for all his misgivings, stupidity, aggressiveness, impulsive brashness, propensity for violence and injuring those around him that cost even the slightest inconvenience was still, at his core, a man driven by black-and-white grade school morals. Which, while laughable and immature, also meant that he was not someone who would take advantage of another human being's weaknesses, and could technically be classified as a 'good person' in the barest definition of the word.

Heiwajima Shizuo is a good guy.

Heiwajima Shizuo is not a nice guy.

Heiwajima Shizuo is not happy with himself.

Those were the only three truths that Izaya could ever be certain about that man, not that he wanted to spend more time than necessary with him. Regarding Shizuo, there was always bound to be unpleasantness.

Orihara Izaya, on the other hand, was different. He was the type of man who had no room for morals in that dark mind and soul of his. Where his heart should have been there was only a void hole that was constantly bleeding love for his humans, the type of love that was black and eternal and tainted everyone. He was the lowest of the low, capable of anything so long as his desires dictated it, casting aside innocents and sinners alike. It did not matter, for he loved all of them.

Orihara Izaya is not capable of love.

Orihara Izaya is not loved.

Orihara Izaya is fine with that.

Those were the biggest misconceptions he hears about himself often. He was capable of love - just that it was the all-encompassing kind that should be spread out for everyone. On one person...it could prove dangerous to himself, or the other. He did not want to end up as either some Martyr or Monster. And while he may accept his unrequited love for the humans who no doubt despised his help, he was loved in his own way. So long as he could be ingrained in the lives of his humans, his existence forever scarred in their minds, he was loved enough. He wouldn't be fine with that otherwise.

They were polar opposite people whose personal values could not have been more misaligned, like they were two parallel lines travelling in opposite directions, never allowed to intersect in those regards.

While one could say that love and hate were two sides of the same coin, it did not change the fact that those two sides would never face each other.

So _why_ then, despite everything, did such an illogical outcome occur. It was entirely unexpected, just like that inhuman thing.

If anyone had posed the question: _'What if Orihara Izaya was in love with Heiwajima Shizuo?'._ The answer he would have given was a hysterical laugh and pure happiness at the spectrum of oddities that his humans could come up with.

But when said possibility was currently his reality, what would his answer be then?

The answer was that there was no answer, for such an occurrence should have never been possible in the first place.

Deciding not to think any more about that, he moved on to the more...hands on part of things.

He had concluded that _they_ were likely a result of some biological procedure, maybe In-Vitro, for they resembled physical traits too uncanny to have been coincidence. Or at least, two of them. The middle one did not resonate with the same features as either of them. She had a sharper face than both of them, along with her detached earlobes which made it so that it was unlikely they were blood related. Adoption would have made more sense. However, he stopped thinking about it quick because the more pressing questions about all of them were increasing by the minute, and he did not particularly want certain ones entertained.

One thing that Izaya does wonder, however, if any of them has gained Shizuo's source of self-hatred. So far, there had been no indicator from any of them, psychological or physical. But then again, Shizuo had been acting severely out of character, too kind, too genuine, too self-satisfied, too attentive - too much. He was reacting so different than anything Izaya was used to that he was at the brink of begging him to just throw something already.

The oldest, the middle, the youngest. Three. They had three. That was three more than Izaya had ever wanted. In the first place, infants were terribly tedious to deal with, spending what little time he did with his sisters has taught him that much. And teenage-hood was not so much better, just more broad.

In all of this, he can't escape that thrumming desire in him to see just what the future had in stall for not just him, but the city, or more accurately, humanity. Like yesterday's failed encounter with that client, what could, would and should have happened to him? There were so many humans to see what had become of, especially after their slow and ripe evolution.

The shuffling of soft, long hair and arms wrapped around his side shot him back to reality, causing Izaya to stiffen. Was she really curling up to his side?! (There it was again! This whole consuming reality that threatened Izaya's plans and more! What good was everything he had done so far if it all amounted to this, if it all ended the same way, this boring, this - underwhelming!)

There had been an unsettling feeling creeping up on him the whole day. If eventually...his humans got over everything and changed...when would they want him again? Was he ever needed in the first place if this was always going to be an outcome? Boring domesticity in the face of all their flaws? Maybe it spoke volumes as to how he has changed or remained if his own family could not yet tell the difference between once and future.

Just how was he needed?

Only one bitter thought manages to cross his mind at the end of all his conjecture, clear in the haze of utter contempt and confusion.

A whole new world indeed, that has such people in it.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Btw if anyone is interested, I have a tumblr. You can find me m3hwhateverworks so feel free to come by and we can talk about these two idiots together :D. In the future I hope that I'll post more of my art and story ideas that I can't find the time to write there.

(Also, I have a plan to start an ask-blog, but it's a bit too much right now so maybe some other time, but I definitely want to do it soon :3)

(...I can't believe it's 2019 and I still want to start a shizaya ask blog what am i doing?)


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: with the human who loves quarrel, his heart lies a stranger's desire**

**Summary: **Things left unsaid

**Author's Note: **From this chapter on are my favourite parts.

* * *

_"__Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity."_

Izaya had always adopted a rather, _laissez-faire _attitude to life (mostly. Ok, not really, but he did like to see things run their natural course, it was just that he would involve himself if need be, which was usually the case.) So, while he felt greatly disturbed that morning, he did not question these strange feelings at first. He never really relied on intuition, anyways. That was Shizuo's department.

The air that clings around the room is chillier today, though maybe that was simply because it was November.

It is only until he is fully awake and observant that he immediately notes the absence of many things he has gotten used to having around the house.

He felt around the side of the bed. Strange, Shizu-chan wasn't there. He's not usually one to wake up this early. Feeling slightly more disappointed, he rises and stretches from the bed. It was probably because of last night. Izaya doesn't know what exactly what came over him but he hoped it wouldn't become a common occurrence. He rather likes waking up with Shizuo's body curled against him, and has gotten comfortable with the easy domesticity of his life since the first time that happened. The morning greetings from the three of them, some days when Itsuki would still run to their room and jump on them in order to wake up. Things like that.

There was none of that today.

Something akin to horror sinks to the bottom of his stomach.

He quickly shambles on his clothes that were neatly folded at the table. It might have been Hana, Shizuo couldn't fold clothes this neatly for the life of him. Their apartment is feeling quite empty today – Shizuo never cleans up this well. It is something that Izaya is always hounding him about, making fun of how Shizuo _"can never be a proper housewife, tsk, tsk."_ Shizuo, of course, would then roll his eyes and probably throw a pillow at him. Gone were the days of proper threats.

But looking at his couch, even from the upper floor of his apartment, the pillows still looked as stiff as ever, untouched and un-creased from the lack of attention.

Feeling queasy, he rushes to the kid's rooms –

_It's not their rooms._

It was a spare bedroom he has never needed to use before, it is supposed to be from sometime long ago, part of the design if his house and he just kept there in case. When Haru was born they actually did something to it, added the pink to the walls and a smaller bed and –

Now, now it has reverted back to its old state; cold, empty and alone.

_What, no, it can't be_.

As he rushes past the different rooms and down the stairs to the kitchen, he starts noticing all the little things that are different, that have been different since he's started really having people in his life, things he has never really consciously noted before.

Even as he's walking past the halls, there was nothing there for him. Just plain art pieces he bought more out of status than appreciation for what they said. There were no pictures of his family. None of Itsuki at his sports day, his daughter's individual portraits or birthday photos. Even those rare hand drawn doodles from when they were small that Shizuo had to fight for to convince them to keep. Nothing.

The kitchen and living room were just so hollow. No scattered bits of forgotten or ignored homework, no stationery that he occasionally steps on and breaks his cursing policy for. There is only a simple fruit bowl smack on the coffee table, more for Namie than himself, he remembers.

In the entrance way, there are decidedly too few pairs of shoes than Izaya is used to.

He never would have noticed it before. How, instead of proud and high he feels for earning this property all for himself, he can only marvel at how empty this big apartment feels with just one person in it.

There are no signs of life in here.

Izaya is struck by a haunting realization. He grabs his fur lined jacket, and just as he expected, there is the coarse handle of a knife lining the left sleeve, and now he is certain.

Donning it, Izaya does something he has not thought about doing for a long time.

He heads to Ikebukuro to find Shizu-chan.

…

Shizuo woke up feeling cold and sneezing.

Immediately, he concluded that it had something to do with Izaya.

Great, now his morning was ruined. He gripped the ends of his bedsheets until they were causing a slight burn, and later mindlessly grabbed onto his table only to realise he has held it too hard and left yet another dent among the others.

"Fuck, this shit again."

Izaya, Izaya, _Izaya._ That fucking flea was the worst thing any living being would ever have the misfortune to come across. At least 99% if all the horrible and unnecessary things that have happened in Shizuo's life was because of the damned flea.

Thinking about all of it only served to bring up more unpleasant memories. That's it, Shizuo resolved, if Izaya took a single step in his city again, Shizuo swore that this time he would finally hit him and give him the pounding of a life that he has always deserved for fucking with people so much and being an all-around insufferable asshole.

Shaking his head, Shizuo steps out of bed and ruffles his sheets together in an almost organized manner. He tries to make his bed every morning but since it gets ruffled again when he comes home late into the night anyway, he only does it when he changes the bedsheets.

Shuffling to the bathroom, he splashes his face with cold water to try and feel refreshed. Later, he accidentally squeezes the whole tube of toothpaste out, curses, then brushes his teeth anyway and rinses with his slowly depleting supply of mouthwash. He then shaves the five o'clock shadow that has started to grow out and he then proceeds to bend over in front of the mirror to check if his roots are showing again.

When he leaves he makes his way to the kitchen, still in his boxers, to make a single slice of toast with nothing on top since he hasn't been able to go grocery shopping in a while – fuck, he's still thinking about that asshole.

To make it taste a bit better, he tries adding a pinch of sugar on top. It's still a bit plain but it's better than nothing.

This is a cycle Shizuo has gone through ever since he saved enough money to afford his own apartment. It's all fine, he thinks, it's not so bad. At least he has his own place, cheap though it may be. It was small, it was comfortable, it was quiet – it's so, so – boring.

Routines were nice, but they, like everything else, got old.

Sometimes, Shizuo appreciated his boring lifestyle that he only got in the morning as it was the only normal part of his otherwise turbulent life.

But it was just so – empty. Hollow. He doesn't feel like a real person when he goes through these motions sometimes.

Shizuo frowned, thinking more. He wasn't ambitious, he didn't have large goals set out for himself, just small milestones that still meant a lot, but were utterly lacking in substance. He sometimes wonders if he would just have been more motivated – maybe he could have been more like his brother, someone he admired greatly. Or maybe he would have at least aspired more towards his dream, or self-discipline, or, _something_. If only he hadn't turned out so jaded. So utterly lacking in any capacity.

_Fuck this_, he decided. It was no good, no good, no _fucking _good to think about these things. It was too damn frustrating. Things that could have been.

He finishes the last of his cardboard bread, dresses in his usual outfit and heads out, trying to shut the door behind him gently. Another day, another time, maybe.

Everything only went downhill after that.

…

Walking around Ikebukuro felt like vertigo. There were old storefronts he recognized. Ones in his timeline that had already been closed up for years, now at the prime of their business, eager customers flocking to the scene. He buys a newspaper from one of them, waving off at the store owner as he does. In a few months, the cheery old man would soon find his assets liquidated by some unfortunate loophole. Immediately, he checks for a date, a time – an indication of reality.

He stops at the bold numbers.

Ah, so they are supposed to be in their mid-twenties now. Shizu-chan should be twenty-four, him twenty-five. Roaring.

He does the math all in his head.

_So, Shizu-chan and I will get together in another two years, won't get married for another three and Haru will be born in five years._

He's hit with the weight of his words. Everything precious to him is all in the future. There's little left for him here. _So why? _He takes one more sweeping look of the crowded streets. The ebb and flow of city life around him, as he stands still. Tiny, and as if only just realising his insignificance. _Why now?_

Not allowing himself to be down for too long, he skims through the paper more for clues, but he already knows where he needs to go. He stops momentarily at an ad on horse racing, joking to himself that he should bet on it now and make it big, since he knows everything for the next twenty three years. After all, he did have a penchant for gambling since middle school, would be a shame to let it all go to waste.

Alright. Stranger things have happened in his own world, sure, but time travel was something even he had never expected – it broke the very laws of physics itself.

He quickly flips through the rest of the pages. These news stories were so mundane he can't recall having read them before, some of them did not even seem like they happened at all. That couldn't be right.

Before he had more time to deliberate on this, however, he felt the force of a brick wall hitting his side. All of a sudden, his vision became blurry, and for the second time today, he feels like falling deep asleep. His last thought before he completely passes out was that the sun was unusually yellow, and the skies unusually cloudy for that day.

…

As the projectile went flying towards that rotten asshole's face, Shizuo realised too late that it would make an impact, and a very hard one, too.

He doesn't know why he's even the slightest bit worried.

But it just. _Pissed. Him. Off._

That Izaya could looks so innocent and shocked and _betrayed_ when Shizuo finally got a solid hit in.

…

Shizuo, it seems, is used to touching his partners constantly. Like a needy, over attentive _dog_. Light, couple-y and _too domestic_ touches, like reaching around his waist, his shoulders, threading their fingers together, sometimes putting a hand on his thighs, (attempts at) kissing, hugging, touching_, touching _–

Of course, every time he does so Izaya would glare him down and shove him away before he decided to get too bold. He is _still_ trying to remain neutral, and it really is a feat with the way Shizuo is being. To lie in wait for a clue, he had to stay calm. There was an explanation behind this, there had to be, no need to act irrationally first. He needed more information.

He's checked his phone countless times, trying to log into the password and failing constantly. The date and time are in line with the previous day and so far, nothing on his phone indicates anything inherently _wrong_. Except everything was wrong wasn't it?

He shakes his head. There had to be something on his laptop, at his workspace, at his house that would give an insight into what was going on.

"Where are you going?" Shizuo asks, when Izaya gets up after having to slap his hand away for the fifth time.

"I have work to do. Don't follow me." And with a last, withering look, Izaya was gone from the living room.

Fuck. Izaya is being cold, and very clearly so. It could be because of last night, when he hadn't said the things that he ought to. Though, that was the problem. He really didn't know what Izaya was asking for sometimes. Izaya is also acting a bit odd today, quieter and fidgety, and refusing him at every turn, but he brushes that off from the awkward night. Although there is something heavy sitting at the bottom of his stomach. Like there's a fish twisting and turning in his bowels.

"Did…something happen last night?" Haru asks, shivering at Izaya's last actions. Something about his narrowed eyes, the way he hesitated, something. About him felt…different today.

Shizuo still finds it difficult to lie. "Yeah. There was, but I didn't think it was that bad."

"Why? What weird thing did he say now?" She scooted closer to ask. "You can always look to me for some advice on –" she fakes being secretive and barely whispers "'female mood swings'!" Out of the corner of his eye he saw Izaya stiffen and throw a glare back at them.

"You know he's nothing like a woman."

"Eh, not always."

"You don't have to poke fun at him all the time! He's –" what's the right word? "prickly."

"Are you kidding me? He practically makes a day job out of making fun at all of us! It's only fair to get back at him sometimes" She pouts when Shizuo only looks back at her in exasperation. Finally relenting, she takes on a more neutral posture. "Just tell me what happened."

Shizuo relates the previous night to her, and while he struggles to look for clues, it seems as though Haru is already setting the scene and comprehending.

"I think that's just his way of trying to express himself. He's the type of person who isn't honest with anyone, even when he is telling the truth – if that makes sense. You have to look deeper, especially if he allows you to. Like, when he says he's not deserving, can't handle parenting or whatever bullshit – even though we've all turned out fine, in my humble opinion! – it just sounds like he's trying to convince _you _to convince him of it. It's weird, but he just seems insecure, and he wants your comfort. You're the only one he can really talk to, you know." She says sadly.

_That's not true._ Shizuo thinks of saying, but again, finds that it is hard to lie.

"SO that means you've got to show your affection more! Don't hold back, don't get embarrassed! Be blatant! Spill your heart out – romantic things like that!" She pumps her fists out harder, still in her morning pajamas while her legs are drawn close to her body.

Shizuo smiles. "Thanks. I guess I didn't really think about that. You'd think I'd be used to all his weird bullshit by now but I guess I still need time to learn, huh?"

"Love is always a learning curve, Otouchan." She says, lips quirking in some sort of secret.

Now that he thinks about it, he was the main connection in Izaya's life. Izaya never had people like Celty or Tom to help sort himself out (mostly due to faults of his own, of course), but even after he has tried to change, there was still something that blocked him from forming true, strong connections in his life. It was like a glass wall he constantly expanded around himself, to see outside but to never let others in.

_At least I'm inside that wall too._

Shizuo ruffles Haru's hair some more, loving when she giggles and accepts it wholeheartedly, silently wishing that her siblings could be the same. Though sometimes, he worries that her approach to other people was like Izaya's, being close in the wrong way. Because it feels like she thinks Shizuo is more of her best friend than her father.

"Alright baby, I'll try it now. You can hog the T.V. all you want."

"Good luck!"

Izaya's work area office is a very conflicting place for him. The place is usually off-limits to the rest of the family and it's where he goes to when he feels like the living area is too noisy. Shizuo says it's conflicting because he knows when Izaya is inside there he means _business_, and Izaya has the capacity to lock himself in there for days at a time with no sense of a break. The last time he has tried to enter while Izaya was working his barely touched breakfast was thrown at the door and Izaya had been purposefully petty for days. He'd even went as far as to buy soy milk for a month. But he was going to have to risk inferior milk options again if he intended on finding out what was wrong.

"Didn't I just tell you not to follow me? What, not even capable of following basic instructions?"

"Is this about last night?" Shizuo blurts, sliding the door closed. Izaya took that as an alarm and took on an even more defensive posture. Earlier, he hadn't managed to hack into his PC and all his known passwords did not work. Just as he failed for the umpteenth time he heard the door click open an there was the very last thing he wanted to see.

"Please, you upset me on a daily basis, I don't know how the previous night could have been any worse than before."

"You've been weird lately – more than usual. If it's about Itsuki I already told you he'll be fine. He's just young and temperamental."

_Stop talking as if any of this is important. As if any of this actually has any meaningful impact on my life._

"Oh please, as if I care about all that." Shizuo frowns. This was veering into a concerning territory. Even more so than usual.

"What do you mean you don't care? You're being cryptic again." But as Izaya goes on, Shizuo soon realises it's more than that. Izaya just…isn't remembering stuff. _Important stuff,_ his mind supplies helpfully.

"I mean," Izaya just couldn't hold the contempt within himself anymore. This whole situation was _ridiculous_ and if Shizuo didn't see that then Izaya would just have to spell it out to him. "The child was probably upset about something utterly asinine and – just look at you! You're completely worked up over that instead of the fact that _you're in my house_, with these – people you claim are _our children_!" Up to that point, Izaya had somehow managed to maintain a hushed voice, but something in him broke soon after. Laughing hysterically, he doubled over, clutching at his stomach because the pain in his side is starting to become unbearable.

"This is all just so _wrong._"

…

So, Shizuo ends up doing what he knows best whenever there is a problem: He takes Izaya to Shinra. He thought it would take a lot of coaxing as it usually does, but Izaya's eyes immediately lit up when Shinra's name was mentioned, and Shizuo was starting to regret it, a familiar swell of jealousy peaking up. But it didn't matter, he grits his teeth as he thinks, this was more important. They are silent on the way there, and in the backseat of the taxi Izaya has opted to sit as far away from Shizuo, leaving an empty gap between them.

He's glad at least, that neither of them is driving. Shizuo doesn't think Izaya is in the best state of mind for that, and he himself has never gotten his license. He keeps throwing Izaya furtive glances that he undoubtedly notices anyway but refuses to respond to. They're most likely not about to have a conversation here, so he might as well spend the time figuring out what's _wrong_.

Izaya looks healthy as always, _too healthy_, is something that is on his mind. It's not that he doesn't have his classic eyebags or the same wrinkles lining his face, but he just feels more…youthful? Like suddenly years have been lifted off his shoulders. Though he sure doesn't act like it. Shizuo gulps, remembering something he learnt from school, back when there was mandatory volunteer work. He has heard of some people forgetting things as they grew older, at first, it would be little things, but sometimes they could forget their whole lives, too. His own mother has hints of early dementia in her, and he's scared. He never expected something like this to happen to Izaya – he was as resilient as a pesky cockroach or fuck's sake.

The next few minutes and the walk to Shinra's front door does not ease him at all.

"Shizuo! And, Izaya! You're here today!" He greets.

"Hey, Shinra." He says grimly. Shinra, of course, immediately senses something wrong then, and is as tactful as always.

"Did you guys have a fight or something? I told you not to bring your lover quarrels to me!" He says dejectedly, though still walks with a bounce in his step. As always suited to the job of giving depressing news and elation where it suits him.

So far, Izaya has remained quiet. Shizuo has been around him enough to be able to map out Izaya's different states of silence, since those instances are quite rare. Earlier, he at least got that Izaya's silence was based on confusion and a quiet sort of anger, right now, Izaya is observing like a predator in wait.

"Shut up." He snaps. "It's something else that I want you to check."

This seems to get Shinra interested, and he gestures to invite them in to sit on his couch while he makes them tea. Once again, Izaya scoots all the way to the very edge, leaving a sizable gap between each other. Shinra raises an eyebrow when he gets back but otherwise chooses not to comment. He puts their cups on the table and settles down opposite them with slight difficulty.

"Wow!" He says, eyes bugging out behind his now-lopsided glasses. "I know you don't come around often but have you always looked this young? I mean, I know you don't like growing old Orihara-kun, but this is beyond what I expect from a man nearing his fifties!"

"I'm flattered, I really am." Izaya drawls, flicking a hand to the side as he crosses his legs. He does this in order to hide his growing irritation with the situation at large. What he doesn't do is acknowledge the word _"fifties" _ringing in his head, or the sting he feels when Shinra still refers to him formally. The worst feeling was that Shinra, the one person he thought maybe would shed light on the issue, doesn't seem to know the difference between what was going on either.

"Where's the courier." He demands instead. Mythical creatures could probably tell better, and Izaya just wants to get out of here.

Shinra stares confusingly at that. "Celty? Oh, she's out on a job. You know, I really wish she would consider retiring so she'll be able to take care of me all day. I mean, it's not like we aren't married as well, and I can make enough money for the both of us so it's not like she really _needs _to carry on with her job." He laments pitifully but not uncommonly. Shizuo makes a silent noise of disapproval at the side, and that gets Shinra back on track again.

"Anyway, what are you guys here for? And don't make out on my couch again – please."

"Yes." Izaya hisses bitterly, narrowing his eyes at Shizuo. "I was just wondering what reason it was that Shizu-chan so desperately wanted me to come visit you for. Surely it's not for some catching-up between old friends."

Shinra chooses not to comment on the familiarity of Izaya's speaking patterns.

"Oh," he says, uncharacteristically soft. "I'm starting to see what the problem is." Taking a sip of his tea, he goes into doctor mode. "Orihara-kun, how has your day been, and tell me from the very start."

And that last line somehow upsets him the most. He wasn't some delicate amnesiac, for god's sake. He thought at least Shinra would be normal, it was _Shinra._ Despite everything he has always been able to see through him and look at Izaya as he was.

"If this is a joke, I _will kill all of you_." Izaya seethes, his fists are clenched so hardly at his sides that they're trembling.

"Ahahaha…right." Shinra smiles and motions towards Shizuo to talk. Against Shizuo's wishes and probably Shinra's better judgement, they leave Izaya there to fume a bit more. He doesn't do anything, just sits there watching them both, no doubt thinking on ways to make good on that promise.

Shinra goes on to tell Shizuo his suspicions that Izaya might be going through some amnesia phase, those ones that might be forced. "Shizuo, are you sure that there were no signs of all these before? And I mean _any _signs at all, like, you know, dementia or Alzheimer's?"

He shakes his head. "No. Izaya hardly ever forgets anything, even more so than the kids. He's always active, it's only been today."

Shinra sighs, rubbing circles into his temple. "Well, I guess we can still leave that as a possibility. Was he injured anywhere at the head before this?" Shizuo shook his head again.

"Maybe it's some kind of regressive amnesia. Caused by shock, or well…" Shizuo waits impatiently. "It could be, you know, forced. This is an odd one though, because it seems like Orihara-kun has somehow reverted back to his old self, you know, during a time where he – ah, where you both _really_ hated each other. Wow, that was a while ago." At that, Shinra peaked up curiously at Shizuo, who has grown white at the news.

Shinra waves his hand anxiously. "Ah! But well, amnesia, regardless of its cause can usually be cured! For a horrible person like Orihara-kun, it's really no surprise that something as human as this would be coming back to bite him in the ass, hahaha!" Shinra chirped, and as soon as he finished that a book came whirring across the room, scarcely missing its target.

Izaya's hair cast a shadow over his face, darker than even those of Celty's, as he slowly gets up and slams the door shut.

"You shouldn't have said that." Shizuo growls, but runs a hand over his face instead of using it to punch Shinra.

Shinra responds by shrugging, and continues.

"Anyway, you should let him look at familiar objects, recount some memories, maybe even hypnosis if you're up for it! The best thing you can do is just talk to him and tell him about the things you've been up to the last few years. It'll be shocking at first, if it isn't already, but that way at least he has a start. You'll face some resistance though."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do that." Shizuo exhales, wondering how to explain this to his kids.

As he bids Shinra goodnight and leaves him and Celty's apartment, he's at least humbled to learn that Izaya was waiting for him, even if he's still steaming with vitriol, so he doesn't mention it.

But when they are in the taxi (because neither of them really feels like walking all the way home after that), Izaya sits in the front this time where he makes it a point to openly ignore Shizuo and speak amicably with the taxi driver.

A few more minutes into it, however, it seems that Izaya has fallen asleep, or at least has pretended to. _You're not okay, but can you tell me how it could've gotten to this point? Does he really hate me, even now? Was he exhausted? _He had to be after all that, right? Shizuo just wishes he could ask all these burning questions, but more than that, he wishes Izaya would answer truthfully if he could.

…

Izaya has only had a lucid dream one other time in his life when he was ten. At that time, he merely dreamt about people watching, nothing too special, just specific people in his class though this time he would have the free reign to do whatever he wants, see whatever he wanted, all those desires locked within them.

Currently, he concocted an image of his own apartment, back to normal and just the way it should be. He touched his face to further confirm the fact that he was himself again, whole and alright.

"You can stop fondling yourself now," A voice that was jarringly familiar forces him to snap up, but there was no one around. "It doesn't detract from the fact that if you keep heading down this path, it won't end well."

Stepping through a darkness was his exact replica, only differentiated in the few extra wrinkles lining his face.

Flicking his eyes to the side, Izaya merely gives a cold smile in response. "You think I didn't consider that?"

"Oh darling, I know for a fact that you are all too aware of that." He drawls, crossing his arms in the process. The smirk on his face tells Izaya that he expects everything that Izaya could throw at him. As if he's that predictable. Izaya frowns. "But just because you acknowledge something is going to be terrible when it happens, doesn't make its impact any less bad."

"Don't lecture me like you know me." In his head, Izaya can admit that he did. It's like he's looking through the mirror from this morning when he sees his doppelganger pause and shrug, except this one doesn't act according to what he wants.

"I am you."

And he says what he's been dreading.

Izaya scoffs, rolling his eyes and giving a lazy smile.

"_Really? _I don't recall us wanting to _fuck _animals."

"Ugh, don't swear. It's juvenile."

His face contorts into one of disgust, as his lips curl too wide to be friendly or amused. It was not so much that he was currently being reduced to the level of a mere child, but more so the fact that Izaya's comment went unignored.

As his feelings heightened, he could feel the room around them stabilize. Soon, he was at his usual seating arrangement when dealing with clients, himself at his own desk, his clients on the couch, usually having to twist their body to the side to look at him. Except _he _didn't, he simply stared straight ahead.

"You still haven't answered me. Shizu-chan," he spat the name like a curse on his tongue. And even softer, "how could you." A part of him registers the betrayal on his tongue. As if his future self ever owed him anything, which of course he didn't, Izaya operated on the basis that he never owed anyone, past, present or future, anything at all.

"Hm? Ah, of course." He smiles sharply, knowingly. "Well, you see it all the time. I'd say it was just luck, really. It takes a day for someone to fall in love, but years to even simmer down the hatred between two people – "

"He's not a person." Izaya easily dismisses. "He's a monster."

"And what's your basis for that?" He counters just as easily, as if he's had this conversation so many times. And he probably has. "Those things we call monsters? What was our reason, really? His strength has never bothered us like it should. And so what if he can't be reasoned with? Most humans, given the right circumstances can't be reasoned with at some point. In fact, him doing so only makes him more human, no matter how you look at it. His limiter's gone off the charts, but that doesn't truly make him a monster, does it? What is a monster anyway? Many people have different definitions of it. Murderers, paedophiles, rapists, politicians, a cheater, a liar – the list is endless. At the end of the day, the word 'Monster' is merely an abstract concept for humans to deflect talking about the real issues that keep us awake at night, much bigger than anything that could hide under the bed."

"You've really gone crazy, haven't you?" Izaya smirks. To think! His judgment could become so clouded. How lame, he expected better from himself to have his thinking reduced to the same level as a regular human's.

"No, I simply decided a long time ago that I'm not going to be like you anymore. Surely, we should both know by now: Most of the time, people are the only ones standing in the way of their personal happiness."

"I am happy." Izaya smiles. He's never doubted that.

"I know _you_ are, but at some point, I wasn't. Call it age, call it weakness, but all I had only left me feeling a bleak emptiness." As he said that, framed pictures started collating around the room, lining all four walls until it was so full that it had to push others onto the floor. The cacophony of shattering glass and the friction of bumping wood filling the silence and becoming deafening.

"That's dreadfully unfortunate, but you seem to have forgotten something. I'm not you. I have my humans, and that's always been enough. What do you have! A monster whose shoulder you can cry on? Some farce of a family? Please, you and I both know that these things are so terribly fragile." Two faces briefly darted across his mind. Gone again. Shattered and easily disposed of.

"Oh come on, you're not that delusional. You don't have your humans, you know that, and you've accepted it. And besides, being human isn't subjective at all."

"In the end, Shizu-chan, mine and yours – "

"Don't call that horrendous thing _mine_." He intersects.

The other carries on like he hasn't heard him, the pouring of images suddenly still. "They're both very much human. They think – hard as it is to believe sometimes – feel, love, desire. It's all human."

"But they are so much more too. All of them." Izaya feels like barfing. Sentimentality was such a tool.

"And that's why I can say I understand. I love him more than anything else, even humans." He smirked. "Be honest," Izaya feels the force of the room drag them closer, and he's not at his desk anymore, but rather opposite of him. They're so close now, so uncomfortably close that when he leans in their noses are almost touching. Izaya really hated himself right now, especially when he was staring back into his own, taunting smirk. They could have been a mirror image, if only they were both smiling. He feels his contempt rise. "You're just excluding him on purpose because you don't know how to deal with it if you didn't."

He let them go and Izaya scrambled to relax against his couch, glaring daggers at this sick, twisted persona of his. _He_ crossed his legs and laid an arm against the back of the couch.

"'Happiness, long life, good health and peace. In old age, that is all people want and have always wanted.' You might think that you don't, and try to remain above all those desires through avoidance, but one day, that just won't work anymore, and you will yearn for them too.

The only difference is that you might be too late then."

"Were you not too late? Think about all the terrible things we did. All the suffering and pain we put him through," _Not that I regret any of that._ "The street attacks, framing him, jail, the list is almost endless. And that's not even all." Izaya clenches his fist, gripping the seat leather harshly. "What about all the things he did to us? He doesn't even register me as significant enough of an enemy to finish me off properly – " Now why is he even bringing that up? "And Shinra, too. He beat him up all black and blue once before, hah! Who's to say your kids won't end up the same way? Isn't it dangerous to leave things so fragile as them with such a monster? How much suffering do you think they'll have to endure in this household?" Honestly, he's not even sure whether he is referring to Shizuo or himself here.

"The only way I see any of this ending well is with a divorce and child protection services knocking down the front door." He finishes his disconnected ramblings and curses himself – he's getting worked up over nothing, he needs to be more composed than this.

All the while he sat there, unamused by everything. "Are you done yet? You look tense." A jab, he never thought anything was capable of hurting him emotionally, until he met himself. "I know when I'm being manipulated. I'm older than you, wiser too."

"Well then why are you here_._" Izaya shoots back tauntingly, not prepared to lose. "I'm pretty sure there is a reason why we switched, and it all goes back to _you. _Oh, why? Were you unhappy_? _Are you here to mock me because you feel miserable with _your _decisions. Don't bring that on me – it's not my responsibility."

The other him, a decidedly horrendous caricature of himself, looked up, wondering.

"You speak an infinite deal of nothing. Just because there is correlation to what I was feeling back home does not mean there is causation."

"Who's speaking nothing now?"

He shrugs, suddenly tired and simultaneously relieved. He has his head propped on his white knuckles as he looks over himself as he was then, feeling bored. There truly is no point arguing with people who can't be reasoned with.

"I don't know."

"Then why?" Izaya whispers, looking down so that he does not have to stare into those all-knowing eyes.

"Couldn't you have guessed by now?" He asks, looking at him as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's because you are human too."

The pile of glass around them spreads infinitely to the black void, a sea full of sharp edges promising a lifetime of pain. At its very centre were two people who could only describe each other as strangers.

"How could you stand all this?" Izaya allows himself to say.

"Because. I like this place, and could willingly waste my time in it."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Wow. So, hi. It's been like what, a year now? And because of COVID everyone's like picking up their old stories lol. Anyway, I guess this is back on though uploads will probably be erratic and have huge breaks in-between them.

Btw, huge credits to Kari Higada for beta reading (like a year ago) ;w;. Without them this story wouldn't nearly be as fun to write!

_"__Happiness, long life, good health and peace. In old age, that is all people want and have always wanted." _– Rao Pingru, Our Story: A Memoir of Love and Life in China.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: ****just for once i want someone to be afraid of losing Me**

**Summary:** "Most people are far too much occupied with themselves to be malicious." – Friedrich Nietzche, Human, All Too Human: A Book For Free Spirits.

**Author's Note: **This is my favourite chapter and honestly what inspired this whole story to begin with.

* * *

"Tears are words the heart can't say."

Blunt Force. Pain. Shock. Dazed. Numb.

Is this what dying feels like?

He really should stop thinking about death so much, it was too soon to be worried about such things.

…

Shizuo panicked.

All around him the crowd was looking at him in terror, people running away in tears, the low murmur of today's gossip starting to spread.

Ah…I fucked up again.

It's their eyes – the utter fear present in them.

When the streets are empty and he's just left with Izaya's limp body and no witnesses. He finds he can't even set out to do what he planned this morning and hurt him even more. Not when he's like this. It's worse.

Briefly considering walking away, Shizuo just picks him up by the fur lining, careful not to come into contact with bare skin, and makes the long trudge to Shinra's place.

The first thing Izaya sees is the flashing glint of a pair of glasses. It's the brightness that causes him to shut his eyes more than the growing pain in his skull.

"Is this really Izaya?" He hears, though the sounds are muffled and distorted.

"What do you mean?"

"Hm, well, I guess I never expected him to actually pass out from one of your attacks. Usually he's more durable than that."

"I hit him with what he deserved."

When Izaya properly wakes up, Shinra notes the way he moves. Slower, and maybe lazier, missing the bright alert on the lookout for ever-present danger that he has come to associate with Izaya in the rare moments he thinks about him. Izaya somehow feels…heavier. As if there's been years of baggage added to his character.

"You should really get some more sleep, Orihara-kun. Those eyebags you have really aren't a good look on you."

Oh god, who invited Shinra over today.

Izaya is still pretty out of it. Shinra checks over him but the more he does the more…uneasy he's getting. Usually, under these circumstances Izaya has the tendency to speak constantly. Here, he's quiet and thoughtful…almost lost.

No one even mentions the fact that both Shizuo and Izaya are in the same room and nothing's been ruined yet.

Shizuo for his part has not noticed anything out of the ordinary. He has not really been doing anything but stare blankly at the opposite wall. Internally he's only focused on resisting the urge to look at Izaya despite the constant tirade of Kill, Kill, Kill that has ingrained itself into his character. He's liable to lose his self-control and actually murder Izaya if he so much as glanced at him.

Celty takes in this scene with confusion and a rare concern towards Izaya. The dazed movements and cloudy eyes, everything about his demeanour was off in subtle ways that were more comfortable than they should be distressing. She knows she should be wary – with him even this could be an act. But her instincts tell her that it is not. Izaya may look exactly the same as she saw him the last time, but the way in which he carries himself here feels ten times less menacing. Instead it's calmer, resigned. A bit like Shizuo, she thinks, though if she ever voiced it out then this moment of truce would be cut short immediately. She can definitely feel it though, this difference, it's been following her all day, permeating the room with a cloud of uncertainty and confusion.

Hesitantly, she reaches out to Shizuo, who is so lost in his thoughts that he jumps a bit when she touches him. There's that over determined look in his eyes again, along with that sadness buried deep within him. He is always fighting against himself, a storm of conflict clouding the good person she knows he is. It hurts and angers her to see her dear friend feel this much pain over someone like Izaya, and she doesn't want to exacerbate the situation. But right now, he needs to know.

"Celty?" Shizuo asks, eyes wide.

[Shizuo, I think this person here…might not be Izaya.]

"Huh?" Shinra and Izaya's attention snap towards the two of them.

[I mean, he still feels like Izaya – they seem to have the same – vibes? But there's a difference somewhere, I don't know how to explain it to you but you must feel it too. This Izaya is not from this world.]

"Celty, darling, what are you saying? While I'm not one to disagree with you, are you sure you're not mistaking his delirious and docile demeanour with this feeling of yours?"

[I'm very certain! But if you're not sure maybe we should ask Izaya about this?]

"Yeah, like hell the flea is going to respond truthfully to everything we ask. Celty, if you say it's so then I believe you, but what does that have to do with any of us?"

[He could be lost? I've heard of these things happening before you know! Sometimes people will wake up with completely different memories of who they are.]

"Sounds delusional and fake as shit."

"Shizuo! Don't speak to Celty that way!"

[Even if it's all an act, shouldn't we make sure? He looks a bit out of it now…I would feel worse than him if we didn't make sure.]

It takes a few seconds before Izaya realises that they're all eyeing him with a yearning curiosity.

"What?" He says, perhaps with a bit too much bite after regaining most of his senses. Shizu-chan sure hits hard. Seeing Shizuo's rising blood veins, Celty decides it's up to her to step up before something breaks. She gives Izaya a once over. Noticing how looks-wise there is nothing different about him. He still possesses the same sharp features and youthful face. Gently showing her LED screen to him, she asks.

[Who are you?]

And it's not the question he expected. He had anticipated a more suspicious question, or maybe a prompt demand disguised as request to kick him out of her and Shinra's home. Perhaps he should have given Celty a bit more credit than that. After all, through the years she has proven to be very intuitive with people, and less of a monster than some humans out there. And she is an otherworldly creature herself.

It's the genuine concern behind the weight of her words that gets Izaya to consider telling the truth.

"Oh, you're quick to the uptake." Regaining his composure, he offers a little smirk.

[That still doesn't answer my question.]

He brushes his bangs off to the side with a bit of flair, stalling for time. It's not as if he really had anything to hide from them currently. In fact, things might be a lot more interesting if he didn't.

"Why, I'm me of course! But I do see where the confusion lies, I haven't seen Shizu-chan with blond hair for years now!"

"That's it. The flea has finally lost his fucking mind. Are you seriously trying to say you're from the future or some shit?!"

"Now, now Shizuo!" Shinra stepped between the two and raised his arms in surrender. "We know Izaya's usually just a troll but I trust my Celty's instinct when it comes to these things, you know?"

"Hold on, how do we know he's not just full of shit? Shinra are you being serious right now, it's him." Just as Shizuo was seriously about to throw Shinra aside in order to get to Izaya and rage against him, he felt the soft tug on his sleeve to reign him back in.

[Shizuo…he's really telling the truth. I know it's a big risk in trusting Izaya, but, right now this isn't really him.]

"Excuse you, I'm just as much of me as I ever was, even more so now with twenty-three more years of wisdom. By the way, have fun when your marriage falls apart in a few years." He can taste the bitter lie on his tongue.

"Haha! After all this time and you'd still be an asshole? Not that I expected anything different but it's amazing that you would still be alive! Unless of course, the whole reason you're here is because someone finally got their revenge?" Shinra's tone was unfazed but his words always managed to hit Izaya a certain way, even after all this time. Before Izaya could retort, Shinra's eyes widened as he seemed to have dawned on something new.

"Wait, Izaya…have you and Shizuo still been chasing each other after all this time?" In the corner of his eye, Shinra spots Shizuo stilling in his motions, his face briefly blank.

"Of course not, Shinra, don't be daft."

"Well I just can't think of a reason you would have been able to see Shizuo short of stalking him." Shinra prodded, curious about the nature of this Izaya. Though with the way Izaya eyes constantly dart towards Shizuo in something decidedly not disgust, he thinks he already knows, but isn't sure if he should be elated by it or not.

"Shizu-chan and I? Well, we've reached a certain ceasefire over the years, believe it or not."

"What kind of agreement could you two possible meet?"

Shinra realises a second too late that he is about to incite chaos.

Well, he thought, glancing at Shizu-chan who looks so consumed by confusion and anger right now that he looks like the animal Izaya had spent a long time believing he was, maybe it wouldn't be too bad to have some fun.

"On our marriage, of course."

Shinra's window never stood a chance against the couch being flung against it.

Later, when Celty has calmed Shizuo down a bit, he's actually the one being tasked to take Izaya home. Or rather, Izaya all but begs Shinra to make him. And after the novelty of this parallel universe had faded, Shinra quickly realised he wouldn't be able to get anything useful out of Izaya and promptly left him in Shizuo's hands. As if it was supposed to be his job right now. Asshole. He wants to complain more but remembers that he just destroyed a large amount of his friend's property and probably did not have much of a say on intruding upon them any longer. Celty, of course, had tried to intervene but Shizuo would feel like too bad a friend to leave her responsible for all this confusion. After all, maybe he really had hit Izaya too hard with the trashcan and he's started believing he was this alternate person.

Somehow, he knows it's a lie. And that walking a flea home is currently his bizarre reality.

Izaya for his part is skipping and bouncing around, light on his feet for what feels like years. And it probably is.

It's just been a while since Izaya has felt this excited, his body buzzing with the adrenalin of youth. Even just seeing the people around him, properly seeing them as opposed to this morning where his mind was still grasping at the situation, it sparks something within him that's been dim for a while.

"O'how beauteous mankind is, oh brave new world that has such people in it!" Izaya said happily, pointing towards the crowds while prancing around. A couple of people had started staring at him, confused at the man screaming in English. God how long has it been since he's been able to shamelessly do things like this?

"The fuck does all that mean?" Shizuo gruffed. This day has only managed to further prove what Shizuo has always known. Izaya was crazy. Too crazy, no matter what world. In fact, the whole line sounded like some incantation, a curse or some other deadly promise – it suited him. Whatever came out from a wicked tongue would only bring misfortune and mayhem and promise a world of chaos.

"Are you that uncultured? Have you never even heard of Shakespeare?" Izaya knows that Shizuo doesn't, of course. Having been the one who introduced it to him years later. "He's only one of the greatest playwrights a world of history has provided us with." He gasped, hand over his mouth in a display of extreme shock. "Not that I really like his works though, I'm more of a Wilde fan myself."

Shizuo rolls his eyes at this display. He is a wild person. "Shut up. Why should I even know who the guy is. From the way it sounds he's probably some stuffy old man who's already dead. And what the fuck are you spouting his shit for?" In English, even.

"How do you even speak a different language so well?" He finds himself genuinely asking. As though they're just two friends on a stroll.

"Language is the home of the mind. The more languages I get to know, the more I belong somewhere, in a sense. You really should take a leaf out of my book – god knows your English never improves beyond an elementary level."

The last part was mumbled out but Shizuo could hear still it, cutting through the air as sharp as thunder. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing Shizu-chan." He says tunefully, a smile gracing his face almost genuinely.

At one point, they stop to sit on a bench. Shizuo didn't care, he just needed a break – he needed not to think about this for a while, because if he kept thinking about it the more he would want to break something. He takes out a pack of cigarettes and shakes out one of the buds. Just as he's pulled out his lighter, there's something warm and metallic being pressed against his cheek.

"Here." Izaya playfully shoves it harder against his face and Shizuo aggressively snatches it out of his hands. It's a warning, and surprisingly Izaya relents to it – Izaya never relents. But this Izaya isn't Izaya is he? Unless it's all still a trick. Or are they still technically the same? You know what? Fuck this.

"What the fuck is this?"

"Oh my, such harsh language, it really brings back warm memories." He shuts his eyes fondly, lips curling upwards into a soft smile. "He was so foul-mouthed. Well, he still is, actually. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I actually changed him." The last part was uttered softly. His lips twitch downwards but it recovers just as fast. That one little action bothered him to a level of irrational concern. All at once Shizuo realised that he wanted to both comfort him and break him. "Anyway, are you blind? Clearly, this is Oshiruko!"

Izaya held it up as if it were some ambrosia gifted to him by the heavens.

"…Why'd you get this?" For me.

"Hmm, well because I figured you'd like it. Ah, maybe it isn't your favourite but I know you definitely like sweet things. You're always weird like that. All hard and strong until I find out something about you that makes you appear soft. You're like…a sheep in wolf's clothing."

Shizuo's expression falters, then his eyebrows twitches in annoyance. For some reason, he sees Izaya's (or, older Izaya – fuck this is complicated, no. The Izaya he knows is the flea.) face soften at his reaction, but it was once again, gone in a flash.

"Uh, thanks." Shizuo begrudgingly takes it. He likes red beans, but they are not his favourite. He wonders why it's his. He probably just has bad taste. Shizuo nods to himself and pops open the toasty warm can. Yeah, someone probably had to be crazy to ever even want to be near Izaya for a day, much less for the rest of their lives. He gulps down the entire can in a few seconds before crushing the can easily between the weight of his palms.

For the first time, he thinks the taste on his tongue is a bit too sweet.

The sweetness makes him a bit drunk – it has to. Because when he thinks of this sweetness now it makes him think of Izaya's face – and how Celty was right. There is something maybe even spiritual that seems off about him here, right now. The traces of time seem to soften his current young and bright features into something less sharp and more tolerable. But even then, this Izaya still feels young and full of life. Shizuo feels the unfairness of it and crinkles the can even more. Of course, with that he that he thinks about the flea, and then about the real implications behind this Izaya's life.

Him. Izaya.

Family.

It just couldn't be real.

"If you're here." Shizuo said, gulping down the lump in his throat. The drink left his mouth dry, like sand – coarse and rough and everywhere. Izaya's creepily unwavering attention was still on him. His focus predatory but surprisingly not uncomfortable. "Does that mean that the louse is with like, another me?"

It felt weird acknowledging some distant version of himself.

Izaya's eyes narrowed, as if he too had forgotten to consider it. That or he was vaguely recalling something nasty. "I would assume so."

At that moment, Shizuo felt an extreme jealousy take over his being when he realised that the Flea, fucking Flea, would be the one experiencing a peaceful life with their (gross, no – more like, saner Izaya and probably dumber Shizuo's) children. Why him of all people? Orihara Izaya, a bastard who could probably not care less about children. Who had two younger sisters who openly despised him at times, someone who would actively manipulate even someone as sweet and innocent as Akane for his own whims and fancy. Why did he get to spend time with them? Shizuo felt how unfair it all was and wanted to smash a building until it was all right again.

Children, huh?

"What are they like?"

"Excuse me?" Izaya snapped out of his thoughts.

"You really that short on hearing in your old age, Fl – Izaya-kun?" He remedies. Izaya glares at the jab at his age, which doesn't really make sense because Shizuo is sure if anything his hearing should be better now because he's not actually old in this body, Shizuo doesn't even think he can imagine wrinkles lining his forehead and eyes. Regardless, Shizuo neve turns an instigation down, and blows a heavy concentration of smoke back. Izaya chokes and glares harder, small tears unwillingly welling up. He…almost looks tolerable, maybe even cu – NO.

Shizuo stuffs out his cigarette and looks away. But he knows he's already falling in love with this idea of an idyllic future.

"I asked what they are like – your kids." The word 'my' nearly escapes his lips. That was terrifying. It felt too foreign, too undeserving, to call anything other than his monstrous strength so firmly his.

"Ah," Izaya gapes at him, eyes wide and – too damn innocent.

"Just answer." Shizuo growls. No, he's so not fucking thinking about this.

And Izaya smiles then – genuine and small. It's too sweet. "Well, ok then."

They spend the rest of the day talking about them. Shizuo is almost comfortable about the domesticity and ease of it all, sitting on the neutral ground of Shinjuku's park benches, watching as the scorching mid-day faded into a softer daylight; it's here that Shizuo learns of their names. He learns how Haru is seventeen and of her future plans to enter into the same university as Mairu and Kururi in Sapporo. Learns how Hana is sixteen and has a fondness for small dogs and volunteers at pet shelters but has difficulty getting the animals to trust her. Learns how Itsuki is turning twelve and doing well on the track school team. He even learns how once in a while, in the dead of the night when only Izaya was awake and working, Itsuki would still clamber into Izaya's lap and only then would he fall asleep. Shortly after, Izaya would follow.

He can hear a hitch in Izaya's breath when he gets to the end.

Here, Izaya is truly able to think about what is happening, about the different time he is in, about how this is even possible at all. And it starts to sink in, everything that he said before, and how he's back to being alone again. Yet despite all this, there's a weird feeling of…catharsis. Before he can open his mouth to speak again, his heart is caught in his throat. Suddenly, there's a wetness on his face that he can't quite place and he hopes Shizuo doesn't see. But he's crying now, and it doesn't stop for a long while, till there was nothing left to spill.

Izaya likes the life that he has built for himself over the years. For once, creating something genuinely sustainable and rewarding. But perhaps, he's gotten a bit comfortable – a bit boring – over the years. And he realises, with a sudden epiphany, that he's actually missed this other side of his to death.

He thinks about earlier today, when he passed out. It's like he had something very important happen to him during that time, a conversation. But now it's become murky and beyond reach.

There are hints of shakiness left in Izaya's voice when he finishes. Shizuo can only wonder.

…

After the tense visit with Shinra along with the silent taxi ride, they're back home. Shizuo still wishes that Celty had been there. She's always been a good mediator between the three of them. With her presence, maybe Shinra would have been more helpful, kinder. Or less blunt. But he's known since forever that that was too much to ever ask from Shinra. There's a sombre sort of atmosphere when he opens the door. As if they could already sense the ominous news ahead. Shizuo invites the kids to sit down, and looks expectantly at Izaya when they're all seated. Izaya feels like running – but this is his house, and he was not about to be kicked out of it. And with Shizuo here he'll be hard-pressed to be able to kick any of them out to the streets.

He has half a mind to simply go to his room and leave them to their own devices. Just like he always did with his sisters, and just let them come up with every bad thing on their own because whatever it was it couldn't nearly be as bad as what Izaya would say.

Unfortunately, Shizuo has a firm grip on his arm. It's tangible, and the only thing that feels real, and Izaya hates that there's a possibility it can break his arm and the rest of himself with it.

Izaya scoffs multiple times when Shizuo's explaining his so-called 'condition'. Their faces – they all look so worried and heartbroken. It would be interesting if it didn't feel so nauseating. One of the girls, the taller one, looked at him in pain but he was not one to offer even the slightest bit of reassurance. Briefly, he entertained the thought that she had the same look in her eyes as Kururi did when she was three and still afraid of the dark. He's disturbed at himself for even thinking about it. He knows he's not an amnesiac. It was the rest of them who were so utterly wrong in this situation.

"So, the best we can do is treat him the same as before. And remind him of all the great things he forgot, okay?" Izaya's mind snaps at that, loathing the reverence in his voice.

"Are you just going to keep talking to them like I'm not here?" He cuts in, finally getting Shizuo to loosen his hold and whip his hand away from the heat of his palms.

"Drop that gentle demeanour – it's not like you at all." Izaya turns to all of them, whilst pointing at Shizuo. "You all should really be scared, you know, he's a terrifying monster who can rip off your arm in a second if he's feeling just a little bit angry." He coos.

"That's not true!" Hana gets up to argue, looking far more betrayed than was reasonable, really. Izaya feels accomplished in actually being able to get a rise out of one of them. They were so muted and depressed earlier. Just before the both of them could really get fired up, the taller girl reached out for the other's arm and she settled down.

"And," he hears Shizuo say, staring pointedly at Hana. "Even if he says things that may hurt, that are out of place, it's okay. He's just confused and a little lost at the moment. You know he doesn't really mean any of it now." Izaya snorts. For all his stupidity, Shizu-chan would have been able to smell the bullshit in that sentence from miles away. "You know he loves you."

Izaya has been told that he's at his worst and most cruel when he laughs. So that's what he does. Laugh and laugh the rest of the night away as he makes the dreadful walk back into his bedroom, now full of foreign objects and an uncomfortable tang of muskiness, and slams the door tightly shut.

…

Shizuo dials the number to another Orihara residence. He's only done this a handful of times but each one of those times were unforgettable and in some mundane way, life changing.

"Iza-nii has been piling on bad karma for years now, so it's really no surprise." Mairu is scoffing on the other side of the line, but he picks up on the heaviness in her voice, which has grown to sound more like her brother's. To be as piercing and cruel as a newly honed knife. Shizuo thinks the world is lucky that Izaya was born a man. Distantly, he wonders why he didn't call Kururi's house instead, since he's more accustomed to her mannerisms. Somewhere in the background he hears the soft murmur of someone half asleep, her voice too muffled to make out.

"No, no, I'm okay, go back to sleep. I'll join you soon." With someone else around, Mairu doesn't sound as threatening.

"You're not wrong." Shizuo pauses. "Listen, I'm sorry that we're calling for this," he stops and sighs, still unsure of how to go around saying it. "it's really no good. Please, tell Kururi for me, she'll take it better if the news came from you."

"Don't talk as if he's dead." She spits venomously. "We'll be here by this Friday for Suki's birthday – I'll try to bring Hideko and Aoba over but, well." He hears her huff. "for all his love Iza-nii could never get along with people. Tell the kids we said hi, and that we'll bring presents."

The line's cut off and only the ringing lingers, stuck in his head.

Against his better judgement Shizuo has decided that he would at least try to spend the night with Izaya. It didn't seem right to leave him alone tonight, like he might even lose what little he has left in this. And the couch doesn't fit his body right.

He has not even fully opened the door before Izaya shoots up from the bed.

"What are you doing?" Izaya snaps, scuttling away to the corner of the bed.

"Going to bed. Do you mind?" Please, don't be cruel.

Of course, Shizuo knows how Izaya was then. Has burnt those memories in his mind.

"Here? Don't make me laugh. Didn't I make myself very clear? I'm already letting a wild animal stay in my house so just – get out and don't even think about sneaking your way in the middle of the night like some creep." He huffed and rolled his back towards the door with a finality.

Shizuo makes to gather a pillow, but the glare that Izaya sends him says he should do otherwise. There's a flash of movement, a swift motion that he recognises immediately from the past, where Izaya's reaching for something hidden in his sleeve that's not there anymore. Not there because they haven't needed that pain to connect for years.

He does not get a pillow that night. He wasn't going to be comfortable anyway.

The couch is cold and barely enough to fit the length of Shizuo's body.

Izaya screams into his pillow.

…

Wednesday morning comes too soon. It feels as if the world is in a standstill as he gets up and dresses himself, deliberate and slow, but no matter how long he takes it's never enough. Time's arrow neither stands still nor reverses. It merely marches forward, brutally crunching ahead.

When he heads down, he's greeted with an unexpected scene of everyone gathered around the kitchen island, where the youngest (he refuses to say their names, even internally, as if admitting defeat) seems to be delivering some sort of speech. He doesn't interfere. He does, however, sit around the island, farther away from the rest of them. Any further would mean avoiding the situation, which would create unnecessary tension that he did not want if he were to properly observe the scene, any closer would perhaps make them feel too comfortable with him.

"'Suki." The shorter girl stops him mid-sentence. Her body language became more fidgety and uncertain. Everyone stopped to look at her, but it was clear from the atmosphere that everyone's attention had shifted to Izaya. "You're not really that engaging when you speak, maybe you should start again and actually sound interested in what you're talking about." It was a bold-faced lie, and while the boy glared at her, he obliged nonetheless.

"I'm supposed to be doing a presentation." He said, so obviously directed at Izaya. "The theme was 'an interesting phenomenon', which is so lame, but." He fumbled, very obviously stricken by anxiety and the need to be seen in high regard in the way tweens often were. "Anyway, I saw this thing that looked cool online, it's called 'Six Degrees of Separation'."

Six degrees of separation. The idea that people are six or fewer social connections away from each other, and anyone can be made to connect any random two people all in a manner of six steps. His mind helpfully supplies.

"Oh, why did you choose it?" Izaya's voice cuts through the previous tension like a knife. Like an open wound, there's something pulpable and vulnerable in this new atmosphere, and the part of Izaya that's always there can't wait to see what they'll do and how they'll act with his new approach. Only the brutal marching of time will tell.

The boy simply looked a bit sheepish then, and Izaya can almost call it quaint.

"I, erm, first heard my friends talking about it, and going purely by its name I actually thought it meant something completely different at first. Like, it was about how people grow further apart from each other? But then it turns out it's actually…kind of the opposite. About how total strangers can be connected in less than six steps."

Izaya is surprised but he doesn't show it. "Well what did you think it meant?"

"It's just – the name! It sounds – it's so clickbait!" This causes an eruption of laughter around the table, and a dry bemusement from Izaya, but even then it's enough to cut through the tense mood Izaya had set up. Unhelpfully, Izaya's attention is focused on Shizuo. Not just his deep laughter, which he has been privy to from afar, but the way his body relaxes in this environment, the casual manner in which he puts an arm around the young boy's shoulder and chuckles. There's a lightness throughout his being that he has made sure has never been in the Shizu-chan he knows. He spends so long trying to pin-point it that the laughter has died down and turned into small chatter around the table. Then, the answer hits him with the force of a truck.

He's not afraid of hurting them.

And the audacity of Shizuo feeling so safe and snug in Izaya's home stirs something bitter and acidic inside him.

Just when Izaya almost snaps leaves, the oldest mentions something offhandedly.

"He has a track race coming up soon, you know?" She's the first to be so open about talking to Izaya as he is.

"Ah yeah, it's in a few days." Shizuo recalls, seemingly startled by this news as well.

"Did you really forget?" Itsuki asks, not actually offended but feels like he should be.

"No, it's just that I had someone on my mind the whole day." Unwillingly, Izaya feels his face tinging red. Shizuo mentions it conversationally, but his eyes definitely flashed across the island to take note of Izaya's reaction. Has he always been so observant?

"Oh yeah. I'm still mad at you by the way." He says to Izaya, not looking mad at all. "even if you have retrograde or something. But you can still come watch me." Itsuki shrugs.

"Suki," Shizuo sighs, as though this behaviour was common. This allowed Izaya enough time to collect himself, as he glances over sceptically.

"You think I should go?"

"You're still my dad so you can come," Itsuki mumbles. "I don't care."

"This is his new thing, not caring." Shizuo says while mussing up his hair.

"But I don't."

"You care about winning, don't you?" Izaya says as much.

"Sometimes." He shrugs. "But not much recently."

"How come?" Shizuo asks.

"I don't know, it just hasn't felt as important lately?"

"Ah, then maybe you'll care more tomorrow."

"Yeah."

From the back, the oldest – Haru, rolls her eyes as if to say to Izaya: "Idiots, right? On their own wavelength."

And Izaya despises how easy it is, the flow of interaction between these individuals. He cannot tell if the boy was genuinely upset or not; he has never been good at reading kids. Worse still, this one seemed to have a similar flow of logic as Shizuo.

When they leave for school, Izaya instinctively relaxes more. He can deal with Shizuo, he thinks. If there's one good thing about this is that Shizuo has become more predictable.

"Well, it seems like that one is a lot of work." He tries, not really knowing why he is. He hasn't exactly gathered anything useful from these exchanges. Just things he didn't want.

"Nah, he's always been aloof." Shizuo smiles, happy that Izaya is finally showing signs of interest. He knows that Izaya's stubbornness can rival his own.

"Always?" A small part of him can't help but be intrigued. By human nature, of course.

Still, he doesn't want to be intrigued. "Whatever, he's so cold. He doesn't seem to love me after all." He had meant for it to come out uncaring, but with his shivering it sounded more uncertain. Izaya smiles deprecatingly to himself, hugging his arms around him tighter, the chill November air seemed to seep through the whole apartment.

"Of course he loves you." Shizuo says, bumping his shoulder against Izaya's. And it's electrifying – the sudden contact. But it's brief. "Why wouldn't he." Izaya stares. There's a lot of reasons he shouldn't – you shouldn't. But something about the way Shizuo is smiling at Izaya makes him too nervous to retort. From what he has observed so far, Shizuo gets dangerously dopey when he is happy, and he is really only happy when he is in love and coming up with stupidly ludicrous ideas connected to that love. Like integrating Izaya into it, for example.

It seems that fatherhood has provided that connection Shizuo has always needed to not fall beyond the barriers of society. To be included in this aspect of social normalcy that revealed all the soft parts in him that Shinra always said was there, the parts that drew his humans to gather around a monster. Like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Or maybe more like a sheep in wolf's clothing.

…

Seeing as his life has turned into a surrealist exploration beyond the limits of human physicality and imagination that would have made Rene Magritte beyond happy, Izaya spends the rest of the week getting to know them all better.

Over the next three days, Izaya unconsciously lowers his guard around them. He enjoys the idle gossip that goes on between Haru and Hana, who were so unlike his own sisters (for one, they actually seemed to enjoy talking to him), that he actually had a decent time. Itsuki's mindless ramblings about nothing in particular were quite endearing, and Shizuo's vigilance has become less a source of paranoia and more akin to something like…encouragement. It all culminates in the day of Itsuki's track race where the whole fam – group. The whole group of them gathered at the school stands. Shizuo didn't seem to like drawing attention to them though that was almost impossible with the girls who were cheering the loudest amongst the crowds of people around them, reminding him so much of Mairu that Izaya joins in for the pure hell of it.

During the whole time he tries to think of similar anecdotes in his life that come close to this feeling of…catharsis. He searches and searches as if even his mind is desperate to repel the very feeling before it hits a dead end. He can't recall a time where he's been this carefree, being able to chatter away idly about nothing. When was the last time he had spoken without a double meaning, not because he had to or felt some twisted sense of joy at relaying some horrid truth to a human in order to break them down to their core. Since when would he be able to genuinely relax in a crowd without needing to strain his fingers around the hilt of a knife?

Later, when they're back home, all worn out but still thrumming with excitement from Itsuki's win (because, if he's being honest, there was no chance of a child comprised of both Shizuo's and his DNA to not win), Shizuo picks all three of them up as easily as if they were toddlers and carries them laughing and shrieking up the stairs. And it's…

It's,

Nice.

Throughout these past five days he has not been thinking about other humans. About how to push them past the brink, he's not been doing much at all, really. Did he even have work in this make-believe world? You've always been self-employed, you don't have to worry about the money for now. Trust me, we have enough in the bank to last forever, you shady flea. And why did he trust Shizuo with this question? A monster, the monster, his monster.

For once it is not his humans that have betrayed his love but he who has chosen to abandon his humans, albeit unwittingly. How?

Because. I like this place, and could willingly waste my time in it.

He has not noticed that he has already reached the top of the stairs when he spots Itsuki. Still sweaty, he has stopped outside Shizuo and Izaya's room as his sisters have long since returned to their own rooms. Izaya can hear them talking about something else through the doors. The silence between them is awkward and full of a dopey energy. He appears contemplative, before rushing up to Izaya and, with a surprising strength grips him around the waist for a whole three seconds before running to his and Hana's shared room.

Izaya shuts the door, arms crossed and a smarmy look on his face. "See that? He loves me more." He sticks his thumb back to the closed door. Something else that has become quite common these few days – the light banters and teasing, which were quite enjoyable. Izaya is willing to admit that he likes it quite a little bit. Just a little bit. Just a little bit.

Shizuo for his part is smirking. "Well, you and Suki have always been the closest. I mean, no one is gonna say that aloud but it's pretty obvious."

"Jealous?" Izaya teases, lips bordering on a smile as he tries to keep his expression neutral, and fails. He settles on quirking them up ever so slightly to indicate his amusement.

"A bit, yeah. It took me a while to really get why, you know? But I think I do now." Izaya's shock must have shown too much on his face because Shizuo pats the spot next to him on the bed. If there was one thing he still has not gotten used to was the idea of sleeping next to his no-longer-arch-nemesis. Every time Shizuo has tried to initiate something he was always immediately shut down and Izaya would take the room. This was new.

Tentatively, Izaya obliges. This is the first time since that morning that they've shared the same bed. Shizuo has taken to the bed like a drug addict to heroin, while Izaya is sitting stiffly by the side, not too close, but not too far either.

"Really," Izaya says, "then tell me about this novel theory."

"I feel like I really learnt a lot of things from being a father." He starts. And Izaya gulps. This whole thing is weird. The word father implies such a level of stability and calm that he has and likely will never be able to associate with Shizu-chan. "Something it took me a while to understand is that kids really aren't that simple, and they can be pretty smart when you least expect it. And, for better or worse, you like to treat everyone as equals. That used to make you equally horrible to everyone around you – " Izaya snorts. "But here it means that you'll treat even kids with a certain level of acknowledgement for their intelligence."

"You know, Suki's a smart kid and he hates being talked down to."

"The way I talk down to you, you mean?" Izaya smirks.

"Exactly." Shizuo says. "I think he likes that you're like this, even if for the life of me I've been trying to get him to be a little less like you." Izaya unwillingly lets out a little giggle. And Shizuo's heat melts at that sound, an open and candid look at Izaya that he hasn't seen in a while.

"I think he likes that you can be condescending and snarky and mean but still treat others with a certain amount of fairness. And I know you like that he admires you so much for it. So, yeah."

"I'm…surprised."

"Why? You're actually really good with kids, Izaya." And for the first time, Izaya is able to fully appreciate Shizuo's smile, aimed just at him.

…

The next day only Mairu and Kururi have arrived to celebrate Itsuki's birthday.

Maybe this experience was supposed to be more profound, filled with a hesitance and guilt gripping his spine. But Izaya's first thought seeing them was only; They're not coordinating their clothes together anymore.

Once, a long time ago before the twins were even born, there was a rare occasion where his mother took him out to buy something for his birthday. While they were at the check-out counter, the lady behind it had cooed at Izaya, and had mistaken his mother to be his older sister, talking about how rare it was for siblings to get along so well. If only she knew how true her statement was.

Looking into the mirror, Izaya might still be able to pass off as Haru's older brother now. So maybe it was a family trait that Mairu and Kururi appeared almost identical as to when he last saw them. If there was one thing he could thank this bizarre scenario for is the secure knowledge that all of them will have aged quite well. The twins for their part still look so young and vibrant but each carried themselves with a level of maturity to them. Mairu, thank god, had left behind her childish braids in favour of a neater bun and Kururi's shoulder-length hair has straightened out a bit more.

He's noticed that despite being close to each other they're not overly touchy in ways that used to disturb him so much he thought leaving them alone was better than facing the problem. They weren't clinging to each other desperately as when they were younger. Maybe they've finally learnt how to live without the other.

"Sorry by the way, Hideko's too caught up in work to come but don't worry, she's brought you all great presents!" Mairu's hands were filled with gifts that were wrapped dutifully with colourful papers.

"Mn, Aoba-san too, didn't want to come." Kururi nodded at the side, her words a mere sotto voce. It occurs to Izaya that she has spoken in a full sentence.

"That's right! Aoba-kun says he's busy but we all know it's because he doesn't want to chance being alone in the same room as Iza-nii. Look what you did, poor Kuru-nee can't spend time with her husband because of you!"

Now, Izaya wasn't so much stung by the explicit dislike of his character (he supposes some things never changed) as he was about the new information he received. He always knew that the farther away he kept his sisters the better, but to have absolutely no prior knowledge at all of this Hideko person is unnerving. What kind of person would be patient enough to reign Mairu in? And Aoba and Kururi's development is…disconcerting. Not that he didn't know she had a crush on him, or that Shark Boy had taken an interest in his sisters, but he can't help but think that part of the reason Aoba would pursue Kururi was out of some deep-rooted need to spite Izaya.

"Aaahhhhh! My sweet sweet nieces and nephew!" She drops the gifts onto the couch and pulls them all into a hug which they seem used to. "You've all grown to be soo cute, like Kuru-nee and I, or Shizu-chan! I'm so glad none of you are (too much) like Iza-nii. Speaking of which, he hasn't been treating you badly has he? Remember, if he ever does I can still kick him until he'll need to bust out the wheelchair again."

Again?!

"Mm. Well?" Kururi uttered with a soft smile on her face.

Izaya was clearly too stunned to do anything, so Shizuo took charge from there. "We're doing the best we can, you two should make yourselves comfortable. The three of you can start bringing in the snacks and drinks." He smiled. And perhaps what happened next should not have shocked Izaya as much as it did, as both his sisters reached out and embraced Shizuo like he was their brother.

He supposed he was. Though the knowledge did not make him feel any less petty.

As everyone settles around the black L-shaped couches, Haru starts the television and plays her younger brother's favourite movie. While Itsuki is engrossed in the stop motion fox on screen, the rest of them have started passing around the snacks. Izaya himself is rather alarmed by the amount of sugar in his pantry. No one mentions the elephant in the room, but its presence is felt in the stiffness of Kururi's back, and the fidgeting of Mairu's hands.

"So, so, is Kasuka-kun here today?"

"No, unfortunately he and Ruri are still overseas. He sends really pretty postcards though, the last one had this huge suspension bridge on it."

"Seems like everybody is busy these days, huh?" Hana said, miffed about Kasuka. He was always particularly soft with her, like when he was with his brother.

Mairu let out a long sign. "Haaaah, why couldn't he have come! Kasu-nii and Ruri-chan are the only reasons I have any social standing at all in my work life! I still can't believe we're technically related now! – we're one step closer to touching him!"

"Yeah…sure." Shizuo said, taking a sip of some colourful beverage.

"But I guess that's just the thing about us Orihara's! – We're always hung up over a Heiwajima!" This causes a giggle to erupt around the couch. "Isn't that right, Iza-nii?" Her smirk is half hidden behind her hand.

"Truism." Kururi nods.

Shizuo pinches the bridge of his nose whilst Izaya gapes openly, face involuntarily heating up at the terrible insinuation.

His gaze flits over to Shizuo quickly and lingers longer than necessary. He picks up something random from the table, anything, it turns out to be some overly sweet fruity beverage but he gulps it down regardless to get his mind off everything in this room.

Try as he might, there was no denying it much longer. Shizuo was…attractive, even in this time. Let it be clear: Izaya absolutely did not have a thing for older men (well, there was Shiki, but Shiki was elegant and eloquent in ways that tugged at Izaya's sensibilities). Shizuo, on the other hand did not have any of Shiki's traits that appealed to Izaya. And more pressingly, he was middle-aged now. In other words, old.

Izaya puts down the drink and gives Shizuo another once over. Maybe he was being delirious but Izaya thought…his age, it suited him. Shizuo looked timeless, framed by the motions of the clock. Old yet overflowing with youthful exuberance. Or rather, he looked connected to time in the purest way possible. In fact he looks younger than Shizu-chan sometimes, who always has a permanent scowl on his face.

A quote he learnt in high school comes back to haunt him.

Do not think that time simply flies away. Do not understand "flying" as the only function of time. If time simply flew away, a separation would exist between you and time. So if you understand time as only passing, then you do not understand time being.

To grasp this truly, every being that exists in the entire world is linked together as moments in time, and at the same time they exist as individual moments of time. Because. All moments are the time being, they are your time being.

Izaya feels that Shizuo has grasped this entire essence, unknowingly or not, and is at peace with his time. While Izaya feels a cold and distinct separation between his past and his future.

"Mairu, are you trying to be like me?" Izaya chides, trying to hide his growing frustrations and reddening face. He soon starts to feel the prickling of everyone's eyes in the room on him, even Itsuki has turned away from the bright screen. It was then Izaya remembers that this is the first thing he has said since the twins came over.

"He speaks." Hana snorts, crumbs of Pocky shooting out as she does so.

Everything from there gets a bit easier. Conversations feel lighter as they talk over the dialogue happening in the movie. After they've put in the second movie for today Shizuo walks to the back and heads out with a huge pot filled with various vegetables and meats – hotpot. Afterwards they start to get a bit bored of the movies and no one was really paying attention, having long ago been more interested in engaging in teasing conversations with each other. Mairu has the bright idea of karaoke, Izaya wants to disagree but it's already too late. As if expecting Izaya to disagree they have already rushed to set up everything.

Shizuo, it seems, has an affliction for enka, and initially Izaya wanted to make fun of him for being so old. Until he actually sang and his deep rumbling voice filled the whole room and caused Izaya to clam up. He wasn't even aware of the lyrics, just the way the sound shook him to his core, but it was some old song about lost love or Rubies or something. Mairu and Kururi perform a duet together, and they're not half bad. It's after they're done that they gang up together and start pressuring Izaya to sing something. And as much as Izaya refuses to he realises that there's truly no getting out of this short of chopping off his tongue. So much to his chagrin, he chooses a song he's quite fond of. The last note leaves the room quiet and chilling, before they're all cheering with delight. And Izaya can feel the rigidness in his posture loosen up a bit more.

From this point it's all up to the kids to sing whatever they want while the adults (Izaya is still hesitant to really call his sisters that) engage in trivial conversation. Haru has picked out some melancholy yet upbeat song, and Hana has chosen a fitting song about flowers. Itsuki on the other hand…has gone completely off the rails into a weird English song with a…unique video choice. But at least he looks like he's having fun.

In the middle of the raving cheers at Itsuki's interesting choice, Shizuo has scooted up next to him. They're close, so close, Izaya can pick out the bits of gold in his hazel eyes that are hidden behind chocolate locks and the warmth that emanates from his being spreads to him. His gaze trails down slowly and focuses on the chapped lips and bits of scruff growing around the bottom. And in the middle of the thrumming music and claps, Izaya can distinctly pick out the beating of his heart, the sound bleeding through every surface of the room. He barely registers those same lips moving.

"So, what do you think?"

Izaya smiles against his will, and it's painful. "If music be the food of love, play on."

…

Mairu and Kururi left the house practically forcing Izaya into one long embrace. The whole process feels drawn and awkward and Izaya wonders if this other notion of him would have gotten better at this over the years. It's only after he relaxes and reciprocates the motion where he notices that they've finally grown past his shoulder and just under his chin. Later, the kids are perhaps not sleeping but are at least in their own rooms and out of the way.

They're both facing each other on the bed, Izaya had actually brushed his teeth while Shizuo was in the shower and the second presence didn't feel quite so disgusting as he thought. And right now, they're talking about their past – his present – which feels ironic, but he might as well take advantage of whatever information he can get.

In between conversation he's let Shizuo grab his hands. They're not all that different in terms of shape and width. Shizuo's fingers are just longer, and unlike Izaya's smooth hands they're calloused and rough. The silver bands around Izaya's ring and index finger glint in the moonlight, and his attention is drawn towards the matching one on Shizuo's left hand. Seeing this, Shizuo brings Izaya's knuckles to his lips, causing his breath to hitch as Shizuo's eyes glow with earnest intent and why oh why does Izaya just let him?

Shizuo's breath hits hot and heavy over his cold fingers and each delicate touch of his lips makes Izaya want to rip everything away from this new and terrifying man.

"Do we have some agreed on hand fetish foreplay?" Izaya attempts at humour to deflect his rising panic, but his voice is breathy and so clearly anxious. It infuriates him to end how his body continually refuses to listen to him.

Shizuo puts Izaya's hand on his chest and Izaya can feel the rumbling of his laughter that chills him to his bone. "No, but you said something similar before. We were on a trip and in the hotel room I wouldn't let go of your hand. I always liked holding it because it reminded me that for someone so sharp there are parts of you that can be so soft."

"And I rest my case. You clearly have an unexplored hand fetish and this repressed desire manifests in creepy ways."

"Hey if anyone has the weird kinks it's you." Shizuo snarls, but it is half hearted. It doesn't matter, the snarl is enough to remind him of who he really is.

"Tell me one of y – our escapades, then." He smirked. This could be great! He got so caught up with useless sentiment that he almost forgot he was in a prime position to gather intel on Shizu-chan from the very man himself. Just imagining spreading the monster of Ikebukuro's most embarrassing secrets – Izaya wanted to burst out laughing!

"You really mean it?"

"What, embarrassed?" Izaya lilted.

"Not at all, flea."

"Wah, look at the monster being all calm and compos – " Before he could finish he finds himself pinned under Shizuo as he straddles his hips, effectively caged under the taller man. And when Shizuo speaks his voice has dropped to deep baritone.

"Well for one, I know how much you like being at the mercy of my strength." He's staring at Izaya with such intensity and a deep hunger that he can't look away. "because you know that I'd never hurt you with it, never again." And he's dipped down and nuzzling his nose against Izaya's neck, causing a deep flush to spread across his face.

"And that no matter how much you pretend to cry – " There's a nip on his neck that causes Izaya to make a sound he never even knew he could. "and tease me," Another, bite and lick that stirs a warmth in his lower half. "you never fail to beg for it harder."

Dammit! Izaya turns away as his face flushes red. Instead of getting a rise out of Shizuo I've only managed to embarrass myself. What has happened to me?

As he silently curses and wills away the growing warmth spreading all over his body, a hand lightly grips his chin and turns his face back. And for a brief, horrifying second, when Shizuo leans in for the killing blow, Izaya almost considers not pushing him away and rushing out of the room as fast as he can.

…

He carries on the next day as if nothing happened. He still has a bad crick in his neck from tossing and turning on his couch all night, perhaps feeling a twinge of guilt at forcing Shizuo to sleep in it these past few days. Shizuo for his part seems to have expected this and gave Izaya his space, finally letting him room to breathe and think. He took the last night's situation to properly reflect and come to terms with certain things that have come to light about himself.

For one, was he…in love, with Shizuo?

He's already betrayed humans by spending so much time getting close with this particular unit. So…is it possible that now he could make some space in his black heart for a more intimate love? Throughout the day whenever he and Shizuo make eye contact Izaya swears the pounding of his heart gets so loud it makes him deaf.

So, that one was most certainly within the realm of possibility.

But was he in love with Shizu-chan? He wasn't quite so sure.

He has never liked thinking too long about Shizu-chan, having firmly held the belief that he was nothing more than a monster with as much depth as a kiddie pool. The topic of Shizuo never failing to irrationally irritate him and perhaps blindsiding himself to certain ideas he may have unintentionally formed about his being. In a sense, if Izaya never dealt with his issues with Shizu-chan properly, he would be lying to himself, and he prided himself on knowing Orihara Izaya better than anyone ever could.

It was…true, that Izaya often felt rushes of excitement and perhaps something more ardent from their encounters besides the malicious intent that characterised so much of their relationship. But that was only because of the pure adrenalin rushing through his veins. Or at least, he was sure that was the cause before.

Now, as he takes the time to judge his…in Simon's words "complex" with Shizu-chan. He does not quite know.

Was Orihara Izaya…a human. Like the ones he loved?

This one was so much easier to answer.

At the end of the day, Shizuo urges Izaya once more to come to bed with him again. And Izaya didn't really want to sleep on the couch. Even though Izaya had made it a point to sleep at the edge of the bed, somehow, in the middle of the night, Shizuo finally manages to wrap his arms around Izaya's waist without getting hit or shoved away. Sensing an opening, he snuggles into Izaya's neck closer, warm and safe, and Izaya surprises himself: he lets Shizuo stay there, pressed tight.

Is this it? Izaya thinks, when he finds it hard to breathe. His heavy panting was the only thing he could hear in this pressing silence. Is this what it feels like? When humans hold each other so close. What is this feeling? It feels so warm.

I never knew about this.

It's so warm…it's suffocating me.

And the tears slipping through didn't feel like his own.

This is dangerous, another person's warmth – their warmth – Shizuo's warmth.

It's a slow killer, a poison, when he touches me, his warmth is flowing into me and slowly…it consumes my very being.

I can't breathe, it's painful, it hurts.

Like I'm being crushed.

He feels the arms tighten tenderly around his waist, warm and secure. He's drowning, the beating of his heart loud and clear throughout the tranquil of the night.

This is an overwhelming happiness that threatens to crush me.

For the first time in forever, Izaya falls asleep feeling completely loved.

* * *

**Author's Note: **All comments and feedback is appreciated! All references listed below:

"Time's arrow neither stands still nor reverses. It merely marches forward" – quote from BoJack Horseman.

The whole section Izaya recalls when he's thirsting for Shizuo is by Dògen Zenji though I encountered it in the book "A Tale For The Time Being" which inspired a large part of this series.

"If music be the food of love, play on." – Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night

Songs mentioned/alluded to:

\- Shizuo: Ruby no Yubiwa, Tsugaru Kaikyou (character songs)

\- Mairu and Kururi: Koi no Bakansu (character song)

\- Izaya: Katte ni Shiyagare (character song, you know the one, yeah that one)

\- Haru: Hitchcock by Yorushika

\- Hana: Sumiko Yamagata – red flower white flower

\- Itsuki: He's a gen-zer, he has got to sing all star. because im childish and like memes.


End file.
